Ender's Game, Jesus Camp, The Alchemist

Ender's Game, Jesus Camp, The Alchemist

I am such a slacker! However, I have a perfect excuse.  I am currently selling my house and have been extremely busy with showings and helping my wife keep the house perfect.

  Besides, with hurricane Ike, our office is down to 40% staff and those

 left behind are shouldering the work. 

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Ender's Game

The first book I want to review is Ender's Game.  I have never been a huge fan of Sci-fi.  I find it hard to care for alien forms that behave like humans, however the space travel and technology fascinates me.

Well, Ender's Game is one of those must reads for Sci-fi readers.  It was written in the 80's by one of my favorite authors, Orson Scott Card.

I wasn't sure what to expect while reading a book about genius children in space.  However, I this is one of THE best books I have read written by OSC.  The story moves on fairly quickly and it has a very twisted ending.  I do not want to give it away, but you ought to read this book when you want to read something different. 

OSC has shown through this book that what really make a story special are character development and the relationship these characters have in between.

I would also recommend reading Ender’s Shadow right after.  It helps complete the story and in my opinion is actually a little bit better than Ender’s game.

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Jesus Camp

While I was going to school at the University of Utah I heard about this documentary called Jesus Camp.  I was recently browsing through the DVDs at the local library and picked it up.  I popped it in the DVD one night and lo and behold.  This simply blew me away.

Jesus Camp follows the story of three children from Missouri who go to camp to learn how to become better disciples of Jesus.  The program is run by a local female evangelical minister and seems to be quite popular in this fundamentalist community.

I do not use the word fundamentalist in a derogatory way.  I just simply use it to describe the pitch at which these children and adults are involved in their religion. 

This documentary does not have an agenda and it actually allows the protagonist to freely tell their story.  It does not make judgments or condemnations of what is happening.  It simply shows us (those that are not familiar with evangelicals) what their world looks like. 

I found it very informative and it some scenes chilling.  I am all for religious freedom in this country, and I respect everyone’s right to worship however they want, however there was a section of the video in which children are shown pledging allegiance to the Christian flag, rather than to the our American flag. 

Overall I really liked it.  I think it was well filmed and gave a lot of food for thought. 

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The Alchemist

This is a super easy read that you can hit on a Sunday afternoon.  It tells the story of a boy shepherd from Spain that has a dream.  He decides to pursue this dream and goes in search of it.  He makes his trek across Andalusia, Northern Africa and finally Egypt.

The moral to the story is to stay true to your dream and to never give it up.  I think the author had some fresh ideas about personal empowerment; however the book could’ve been so much more!

I kept being distracted by the narration.  He kept using examples like:  the boy did this and the boy did that, and the boy went there.  Stop using the “boy”, he’s got a name! Santiago.  Also, some of the characters that were introduced completely unnecessary, for example the Englishman, he was kind of weak character and took away from the overall story. 

However, I really liked the book.  I am not going to rush to read his other works, but maybe later.  You should read it.