The Host, by Stephanie Meyer

The idea of having two people inside one mind and body was fascinating and well-done. The concept of 'self,' what it means to love oneself, and what it means to have others love you, were all main themes. The treatment of others who are different from you was given a thorough discussion. Being strong in the face of adversity, keeping passions within set boundaries, working together with others to accomplish goals, and keeping priorities straight were other important things addressed.

The two main external relationships that are compared and contrasted include discussion of the sense of heat when skin contact is made and of molten earth moving inside. There is also some violence but for the most part, I felt the themes of the book were meaningful and thought-provoking 

Xenocide, by Orson Scott Card

Card includes more swearing in this novel than in the first two, which I think is an unfortunate and misguided reflection of the age of the audience he's targeting. The moral, pholosophical, and ethical dilemmas Card discusses (sentient life, martyrdom, personal dichotomy, the human soul, genetic makeup vs. destiny, family, etc, etc) are passionately written and thought-provoking to follow.

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A man's wife lay dying. There is a beautiful and long philosophical discussion, of which this is my favorite part: "If I had any part of you in me," said [he], "I would not have needed to marry you to become a complete person... The husband longs for his whole self, which was made of the husband and wife together. Thus he never believes any of hiss own thoughts, because there is always a question in his mind to which his wife's thoughts were the only possible answer."

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...it was much easier for the godspoken to follow the Path, because to them the price for straying from it was so terrible. The common people were free; they could leave the Path and not feel the pain of it for years. The godspoken couldn't leave the Path for an hour.

I am taking this quote out of context and applying it to myself: If God has spoken to us, is it then easier to follow His path? Do we know the price of straying from it? Those who have not heard His voice are free after a fashion, but their freedom is so limited. The Light of Christ in every man helps him feel the pain of leaving God's path, even if one chooses to ignore it until they are no longer sensitive enough to feel it. Those who are coming to know God - then stray from Him - either come back or do not. So the challenge faced in this book is that the godspoken are forced to come back, forced within moments. They are not free.

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"I'm sorry," he said.
"You're welcome," she said. She believed in answering what people meant, not what they said.

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[She] had long ago observed that in a society that expected charity and fidelity, like Lusitania, the adolescents who controlled and channeled their youthful passions were the ones who grew up to be both strong and civilized. Adolescents in such a community who were either too weak to control themselves or too contemptuous of society's norms to try usually ended up being either sheep or wolves--either mindless members of the herd or predators who took what they could and gave nothing back.
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[They] would now make the great effort to pretend that they were simply two people doing their jobs--that all was normal between them. Inner strength and outward respect. These are the people who hold a community together, who lead. Unlike the sheep and the wolves, they perform a better role than the script given them by their inner fears and desires. They act out the script of decency, of self-sacrifice, of public honor--of civilization. And in the pretense, it become reality. There really is civilization in human history, [she] thought, but only because of people like these. The shepherds.

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"I saw what Andrew did in our family. I saw that he came in and listened and watched and understood who we were, each individual one of us. He tried to discover our need and then supply it. He took responsibility for other people and it didn't seem to matter to him how much it cost him. And in the end, while he could never make the Ribeira family normal, he gave us peace and pride and identity. Stability. He married Mother and was kind to her. He loved us all. He was always there when we wanted him, and seemed unhurt by it when we didn't. He was firm with us about expecting civilized behavior, but never indulged his whims at our expense. And I thought: This is so much more important than science. Or politics, either. Or any particular profession or accomplishment or thing you can make. I thought: If I could just make a good family, if I could just learn to be to other children, their whole lives, what Andrew was, coming so late into ours, then that would mean more in the long run, it would be a finer accomplishment than anything I could ever do with my mind or my hands."
"So you're a career father," said Valentine.
"Who works at a brick factory to feed and clothe the family. Not a brickmaker who also has kids. [My wife] also feels the same way. ... She followed her own road to the same place. We do what we must to earn our place in the community, but we live for the hours at home. For each other, for the children. It will never get written up in the history books. ... It's a boring life, to read about," said Olhado. "Not to live, thought."

This is a beautiful family perspective, though I also believe that it is worth proactively strengthening the community for future generations. He learned a powerful lesson from another man's kindness.

Speaker for the Dead, by Orson Scott Card

Gripping and powerful, Card's new world brings the dilemma Ender faced in Ender's Game back to the scene, but from an adult perspective. Also introduced are the complexities of family, religious, government, and community relationships. I love this quote from Card's introduction:

"But I hope that in the lives of Ender Wiggin, Novinha, Miro, Ela, Human, Jane, the hive queen, and so many others in this book, you will find stories worth holding in your memory, perhaps even in your heart. That's the transaction that counts more than bestseller lists, royalty statements, awards, or reviews. Because in the pages of this book, you and I will meet one-on-one, my mind and yours, and you will enter a world of my making and dwell there, not as a character that I control, but as a person with a mind of your own. you will make of my story what you need it to be, if you can. I hope my tale is true enough and flexible enough that you can make it into a world worth living in."

The biology and study of the alien species on this planet are fascinating. The studies of inter-personal relationships and the power that grief and truth have on the lives of the people is wonderfully played out. There is definitely closeness and desire for others but no erotic descriptions and the adultery is cast as properly devastating. The conflict created when government tries to control science is both repulsive and hilarious. Demosthenes, as always, is vibrantly clear in her analysis of situations. And then there's Jane. Oh, I'm excited to read the last two books in this series and learn more about Jane. She is a somebody who came from nobody and can influence everybody, but has a wonderful sense of conscience and is a great judge of character. She knows almost everything and can use that information! I guess I admire her a bit.

Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury

The poor man, Montag, has an awful life, but maybe everybody in the book does. (Everyone uses sleeping pills, at any rate.) Such is the truth in any dystopian novel though. This one particularly highlights the importance of every person being educated and loving learning, especially through books. Montag is a fireman, in a time when houses are fireproof. His job is to go burn those houses that have books inside them. This did not start as a government mandate though, the people gradually stopped using books and eventually turned against them. Fahrenheit 451 is the temperature at which paper burns.

One day on the way home he meets his new neighbor, Clarise, who is the only happy person in the novel. She lives in a world her own and actually sees things around her and thinks. After they've known each other awhile, they have this exchange:

"Why is it," he said, some time, at the subway entrance, "I feel I've known you so many years?"

"Because I like you," she said, "and I don't want anything from you. And because we know each other."

An older man in the community who grew up with books and still loves them describes the three things missing from the people in that day. Lack of these three things led to the demise of the printed word: quality books, the leisure to digest them, and the right to carry out actions based on what we learn from the interaction of the first two. During the discussion on those three points this gentleman says "Books can be beaten down with reason. But with all my knowledge and skepticism, I have never been able to argue with a one-hundred-piece symphony orchestra..." I love that quote. Music is so powerful, but it is also ephemeral. The truth cuts both ways.

Later when Montag has some time to slow down and think, "He saw the moon low in the sky now. The moon there, and the light of the moon caused by what? By the sun, of course, and what lights the sun? Its own fire. And the sun goes on, day after day, burning and burning. The sun and time. The sun and time and burning. Burning. The sun and every clock on the earth. It all came together and became a single thing in his mind. After a long time... he knew why he must never burn again in his life. The sun burnt every day. It burnt Time. The world rushed in a circle and turned on its axis and time was busy burning the years and the people anyway, without any help from him. So if he burnt things with the firemen and the sun burnt Time, that meant that everything burnt! One of them had to stop burning. The sun wouldn't, certainly. So it looked as if it had to be Montag and the people he had worked with... The world was full of burning of all types and sizes." What do I burn? How do I burn? What things in my life do I need to alter to become, instead, one who does "the saving... the putting away... the keeping"?

At one point Montag leaves the city and finds a kind of fire he never knew: "That small motion, the white and red color, a strange fire because it meant a different thing to him. 

It was not burning. It was warming. 

... He hadn't known fire could look this way. He had never thought in his life that it could give as well as take. Even its smell was different."

There are several afterwards by the author in the book. He discusses censorship and other 'burning' of his own works, and shares his thoughts on digression, which I found interesting and will share here. "Digression is the soul of wit. Take philosophic asides away from Dante, Milton, or Hamlet's father's ghost and what stays is dry bones. Laurence Sterne said it once: Digressions, incontestably, are the sunshine, the life, the soul of reading! Take them out and one cold eternal winter would reign in every page. Restore them to the writer--he steps forth like a bridegroom, bids them all-hail, brings in variety and forbids the appetite to fail." This caused me no little reflection, and I am resolved to notice the use of digression more in my reading.

Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow, by Orson Scott Card

The tale of two young geniuses are brought to bear here, complete with inter-galactic warfare, mind games, social adeptness (and in-adeptness), political masterminding, and the stories of their heart-wrenching backgrounds.

Ethical problems are presented and discussed from multiple viewpoints. The science of God and man are brought to highs and lows. The plot and main characters are a pleasant puzzle that is placed piece by intriguing piece into view.

These two novels are partners - parallel to each other but told from the viewpoints of different characters - the tactical genius and the social genius.

These are excellent reads and would be great for discussing the concepts while reading along with a child.