Orson Scott Card's 'Ender and Bean': The Exceptional Child as Hero

Orson Scott Card's school stories in outer space, "Ender's Game" and "Ender's Shadow," purportedly occur at the same time and tell the "same" story, but from the perspectives of two different child protagonists. Scenes in "Ender's Shadow" even reproduce text from "Ender's Game." Nevertheless, 14 years elapsed between the publications of the two books. This essay brings child studies and exceptionality research to bear on the two novels, analyzing the development of Card's ideology regarding his view of the exceptional child and his view of the nature of heroism in a post-modern world.