Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game is timely for the Wilmington Faith and Values readership. 

A controversial book when it was written in 1994, it is currently in production as a film starring Harrison Ford, Ben Kingsley and Viola Davis due to be released next year. 

It centers around Ender Wiggin, a gifted third child in a time of mandated two child families.  Ender is sent to battle school along with other gifted and talented children to train for an impending battle with an alien race trying to conquer Earth. 

Parents have objected over the years to the book for a variety of reasons: because of the highly violent action of children who are the main characters and also partly because the book is written the way gifted children speak rather than in the highly romanticized idea we like to have of children. 

Card is a long time resident of North Carolina and the part of the book when they bring Ender back to planet Earth, to help him develop some connection with what he will be fighting for, is set in Greensboro. 

The descriptions of the beauty and solitude of rural life just outside Greensboro's city limits, though would ring true with any nature appreciator, and will feel like home for North Carolina natives. 

I found myself nodding along with the familiar descriptions and acknowledging that yes, Earth must be defended. 

Card is a devout member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And though "Ender’s Game" is not a book on or about Mormonism, certainly several themes relating to the church appear in the book, making it even more timely given the current presidential race. 

Both of Ender’s parents come from religious families that had disobeyed the two child edict and had large families. This is an allusion to the traditionally large families of the Mormons and the image of Mormon families as small hold outs against the tide, adhering to a greater calling. 

Card is a board member of the National Organization for Marriage and has been very vocal about his faith and its interrelationship with politics.  Given that, right now, we are looking at a viable presidential candidate who is also Mormon, Card's work is timely now more than ever.