An Interesting Quiz --- What is the title of this book?

[DATo]

See if you can guess the book I am describing. Please read all ten points before going to the bottom of this post for the answer.

1) A young boy (the main character, whose name is in the title of the book) is endowed with special gifts and has a very special and important destiny.

2) When the book opens he is living with a family under unusual circumstances and in this family there is another boy who treats him very badly.

3) He is taken to a special (and very unusual) school to develop his very special (and very unusual) abilities, and at this school other children who also have special attributes and abilities are also enrolled.

4) Another male member in his family's past was also enrolled at this school before the events of the book take place and had a very high achievement record.

5) The main character thinks of his parents and is very sad and lonely until he befriends two other children at the "school" - a boy and a girl.

6) Of the two new friends the girl appears to have a very high aptitude for many of the things taught at the school.

7) The children at the school are divided into groups. One of these groups, motivated by their leader, plots against the main character whom they hold in disdain and contempt. The main character does not want to be associated with this group.

8) The main character takes part in a competition sanctioned by the school in which two teams of competitors must fly through the air to accomplish a special task. The main character soon becomes a legendary player and is regarded as the best to have ever competed.

9) It is hard to determine if one of the main character's adult overseers is actually a friend or a villain.

10) The adult teachers and administrators at the school are aware that the main character is the only hope to defeat an upcoming, evil menace which threatens the world, and they monitor his progress carefully.

Do you think you know the name of this book ?

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The name of the book is Ender's Game and it was written by Orson Scott Card in 1985. Harry Potter And The Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling was published on June 26, 1997 - TWELVE YEARS LATER!

EDIT: If you haven't already read Ender's Game I recommend it highly.

[Calidore]

Second. I haven't liked much else I've read by Card, but Ender's Game is excellent. I didn't care for the sequel, Speaker for the Dead, at all, but it also won both the Hugo and Nebula, so I may be in the minority.

I have heard good things about Ender's Shadow, which retells the original story from the point of view of his friend, Bean, and do intend to read that one day. I think a rewrite of the first Harry Potter book from Ron's or Hermione's POV could also be fun.

[DATo]

Greetings Calidore

I've only read Ender's Game but I have learned that Bean does figure much more prominently in one (or more) of the other books. I think you have a great idea there - seeing the H.P. saga through the eyes of Ron or Hermione. The only time I have ever experienced this effect was in one of the Sherlock Holmes stories where Holmes tells the story.

Just wondering if you also saw the similarities emerging in the two stories I cited when you read them. Actually, I only posted the ones that immediately came to mind as I was writing the post, there may be even more.

[Calidore]

I read them much more than twelve years apart (more than twenty years, really), so I can't say I noticed. I know people have brought up similarities to Star Wars as well, but SW itself has very little original in it. The "humble nobody becomes Somebody Great" trope is ancient; it's what's done with it that counts.