Ender's Shadow - Orson Scott Card

A parallel novel to Ender's Game, Ender's Shadow covers roughly the same time period, but the main character is Bean instead of Ender. In the foreword, Card uses the term parallax to describe the two books: the same thing, but seen from slightly different view points. {A facinating side note, it's the slight difference between what the right eye and left eye see that acts as parallax for us, and allows us to see things as three dimensions. When you see pigeons or chickens moving their head back and forth, they are using parallax. With only one eye on each side of their head, they have to move it back and forth just a little bit to build up a three dimensional image.} It's exactly this parallax that makes rereading books worthwhile. Every time I reread a book, I am a slightly (or dramatically) different person, so I get something different from the book.

In this case, I've just recently read The Speed of Dark, and that affects what I notice. One of the major themes in TSoD was which people are "real"; do people with autism count as "real" ? or is it only the 'normals'? Are all normal people real? What about the one who goes crazy with jealousy and rage, so that they implant a chip in his brain? Now in Ender's Shadow we come across the line:

"They still didn't think of anything the children did as 'real'."

That same concept again.. who is real? I know I've spent a great deal of my life trying to feel that I was real. And coming to grips with things in my life/experience that were also real. Hell, I still struggle to feel like a "real" adult.

I think one of the best things about my three year old nephew's family, and how they have raised him is that they treat him as a "real" person. His ideas, fears, feelings and actions are all seen as real, as valid, as worthwhile. I've seen so many parents, teachers, and authority figures act as if children and what they do aren't real.. they're just kids. What a disservice we do to our children when we treat them this way. When does the magic switch flip? When do we become real?