Orson Scott Card: Holding on to the 'others'

I remember that when, at 19, I read Chaim Potok's "The Chosen," I was stunned to learn from it that Jewish culture respects people with intellectual gifts, with a scholarly temperament. I remember setting the book down in the midst of an early chapter and closing my eyes and trying not to cry.

Because I couldn't help but think: What would my life have been like, if I had grown up in a culture, and not just a family, that valued the things that I was good at? That actually thought a kid like me was cool?

As the author of "Ender's Game," I hear from a lot of kids (or former kids) who talk to me about the sheer loneliness of their lives at school age, and how often adults were just as likely to push them away as the other kids were.

These kids may seem odd or off-putting to others, but they are not odd to themselves, and they are not offputting to God.

There's more than one way to lose sheep. If adults or peers make it clear that bookish or artistic kids are not really part of the flock, they'll get the message. They'll go away. And too many of them will fall prey to the pack of flatterers that is always waiting in the nearby woods.