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The Ender books, by Orson Scott Card

It made him sorrowful, but Ender did not weep. He was done with that. When they had turned Valentine into a stranger, when they had used her as a tool to work on Ender, from that day forward they could never hurt him deep enough to make him cry again. Ender was certain of that.

And with that anger, he decided he was strong enough to defeat them, the teachers, his enemies.

(from Ender's Game)

There is no real connection between Ender's Game and the next three in the series except that Ender and his sister are in them. Ender's Game started simply as a short story, grew to a book, and then, many years later, took off on a completely different tangent. I don't mean there is no story flow, but Speaker for the Dead and the next two could in some ways be regarded as a self-contained trilogy, except that you do need to have read Ender's Game to understand where Ender is coming from, and the basis of the plot. Anyway, none of that is meant as a criticism, just a warning. In many ways, the Speaker books are more original, but Ender's Game retains its power. There's a reason why it spawned so many books! The "Shadow" series follow on more directly from Ender's Game, being set on Earth, and dealing more directly with the fallout from the events in Ender's Game, but they follow another character (one we are very interested in!).