Happy Anniversary Ember’s End. The Green Ember Finale’s Book Birthday!
Today is a special day; it marks the one year anniversary since the end began. We’re celebrating with a HUGE GIVEAWAY so read on to find out how to enter!
Ember’s End was officially published on April 14th. Fun fact: due to numerous requests, this book released early as a way to serve those looking for hopeful, inspiring stories during a time that required bravery, courage, and hope.
“Dark as it gets, there’s always a dawn.”
Ember’s End
Now more than ever we need stories that inspire us. We need stories that make us brave.
Here’s a little bit about the book that does just that: “Heather and Picket face off for the last time with their tyrannical foes in this final installment of The Green Ember Series. The Mended Wood flickers dimly in the vision of the rabbits of Natalia, as they battle bravely for their survival and a hopeful future beyond.”
As the final installment made it’s way into the homes of readers, the reception was heartwarming. Take a look in this video celebrating the anniversary!
This is what S.D. Smith has to say about Ember’s End:
“I never intended this to be an Easter book, like a bunny book for Easter. I mean, people buy these books for Easter baskets and that’s fine with me, but I wasn’t thinking about it in that way myself.
But the last book is really kind of an Easter book. It was written during Lent and Easter largely.
It released during Easter.
And what’s really fun is that Ember’s End came out during a global pandemic. I won’t soon forget that.
But it all fits. The story is about life breaking through in the face of death. It’s about sacrificial love. It’s about the dawn of a Mending.
So, I didn’t design it that way, and it’s not an allegory or anything like that at all. But it really fits that it came out during Easter season and that we can have this anniversary of Ember’s End happening during Eastertide.”
The eloquent ending has warmed the hearts of many but don’t just take our word for it. Here’s what YOU are saying:
Have you made your way to the end? Share your thoughts by hopping on over to Goodreads, Amazon, or Audible to review this book. Your reviews are incredibly appreciated.
And just to make sure EVERYONE gets something cool from the Ember’s End fun, here’s a free Ember’s End coloring sheet, brand new and created by Green Ember Series artist Zach Franzen! It features Jo Shanks, Cole, and Heyna catapulting away from the Terralain camp! You can grab it here.
(And FYI, you can get 8 awesome Green Ember coloring sheets FREE—including another brand new Ember’s End sheet—if you “Gimme 5.” It’s easy and you can do that here.)
For Ember’s End’s anniversary we are celebrating how any good rabbit should: with a sweet treat and the game Heather recalled from her childhood that her father invented – Tower Wars.
Tower Wars
You Will Need:
- wooden blocks
- a small ball
- an opponent
The play is simple: work on your own or in a team to build opposing towers, focusing on strength as well as beauty. Take turns throwing a small ball back and forth until one of the towers falls. Whichever team’s tower is left standing is the winner.
Congrats! You get bragging rights.
Time to celebrate with a sweet treat. Our choice: pecan cupcakes.
April 14th also happens to be national pecan day so it’s only fitting to add pecan cupcakes to our Ember’s End celebration – because what rabbit doesn’t love nuts?! What a great excuse to whip up your favorite pecan recipe!
How are you celebrating Ember’s End’s birthday? We’d love to see! Use #rabbitswithswords and tag @sdsmithereens on Instagram or Facebook.
We also love to see the art and ideas you create and share. Check out the video to see more of what we’ve already received!
New to The Green Ember? Get started with the first audiobook for FREE.
If you want your very own copy, Ember’s End is available in hardcover and paperback at the S. D. Smith Family Store (where you get the best deal) and is also available on audiobook and eBook (and print) at Amazon and your favorite bookshops.
* SALE ALERT * Right now you can get the entire set in paperback, which retails at $114.55 for $79.97! That’s ALL NINE GREEN EMBER BOOKS for under $80! GRAB IT NOW!
* SALE ALERT II * Right now you can also get most of the eBooks for $0.99 or FREE! Sale ends soon so don’t wait to snag your copy.
Speaking of free: if your library partners with Hoopla, you can listen to ALL the audiobooks for free! Make sure to check with your local library and then follow the recommended reading order.
Now for a final word from S.D. Smith:
“This was the culmination of a lot of work, many hours of pouring my heart out on the page, right there day after day, in the thick of the adventure with Heather and Picket. I was happy to bring it to an end that satisfied me, and my kids—who were the original audience—and our amazing readers. That was a dream come true. And I’m so thankful.”
It’s time for the GIVEAWAY! In honor of the anniversary, we’re giving away:
- (2) Signed Hardcover copies of Ember’s End
- (2) Ember’s End Audiobooks
- (2) Signed Sets of The Green Ember Series books
- (2) Full Sets of The Green Ember Series Audiobooks
- (2) Picket’s Sword
- (2) Heather’s Necklace
- (2) “T-Shirt of your choice” from the S.D. Smith family store
How to enter: Let us know in the comments (here / Instagram / Facebook) how you are celebrating Ember’s End’s anniversary – are you playing a game, making a fun treat, drawing a picture? (You can get free coloring pages when you Gimme 5!)
7 winners will be chosen at random and 7 winners will be chosen based on the fun ideas you share to celebrate Ember’s End’s birthday for a total of 14 winners! Winners will be chosen and contacted on April 21st.
Rules: Must have a U.S. mailing address. Must be 18 or older. This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by or associated with Facebook or Instagram. Void where prohibited.
Thank you for celebrating Ember’s End’s anniversary with us!
Coloring is always fun, and sounds like the perfect way to celebrate!
So excited! We are not finished with all the books yet…finished Ember Falls with the kids last night but will celebrate the great series with some drawings by the bigs and coloring for the littles! So excited to store some of these great ideas for when we DO finish Ember’s End.
In honor of Ember’s End’s birthday, I shall attempt to make an origami (or in other words fold) rabbit (with a sword of course)! HAPPY BIRTHDAY! ???
Ours was a simple celebration of printing and coloring the new pages that you provided. We’ve read all the books and can’t wait for the next!
We are just getting to the end of the Book with all the kids, reading aloud. We will certainly celebrate with coloring pages!
We’ve read all the books multiple times both as family read alouds and individual reading time. My kids (12, 10, 7, 6) use the coloring sheets like paper dolls and my oldest daughter draws the characters for fun. Tower wars sounds like a fun way to celebrate today! My son can’t have nuts, but carrot cupcakes would be a yummy treat. The kids can help make them.
We will listen to Green Ember A..G..A..I..N 🙂
Draw a character picture 😀
We will keep working on Book 1 and celebrate with games and coloring pages. Thank you!
Color a Green Ember picture!!!
We celebrated by downloading: The Last Archer and The BlackStar of Kingston. We finished the Green Ember Series this week and the girls have been writing lengthy book reports which they will be presenting during our annual Education Showcase this year. The younger kids love hearing the older two spout off long orations from the books. (They’ve memorized numerous parts and quotes. :-)) Thank you for writing stories that can be enjoyed by young and old alike. My husband and I read them first and absolutely loved the quality and the character traits and values taught within them.
Congratulations! You have won a Green Ember T-Shirt of your choice from https://www.sdsmith.com/store. Please email josiah@sdsmith.com with a subject line of “I WON a Tshirt.” Please include your name, mailing address, desired shirt style and size. Please include your Instagram username. Here’s a sizing chart for the shirt: https://www.sdsmith.com/store-faq Thanks for participating!
Happy Birthday Ember’s End’s!!!??❤️?
We shall celebrate with some reading, baking, game playing and coloring! Thank you for the fun coloring pages and for a chance at such an awesome giveaway!!!
Happy birthday EE!!!
Today I’m planning on drawing every. Single. Main. Character.
So that includes
Heather
Picket
Jo
Kylen
Emma
Smalls
Helmer
Cole
Heyna
Morgan
Weezie
Morbin
Garten
Wilfred
Whittle
and
Gort because he’s cute.
And if I have time I’m rereading BSoK, the first TGE book I ever read.
Oh, and playing Tower Wars.
Aaaaaaaaaand wearing my Fight Back shirt.
And Heather’s Necklace
And making a Cole cosplay. I have the design down, and I just need to do it.
Rhys, you sound busy….we hope we get to see some of that art over on NS!!!
Thanks! Yeah, I plan of posting it. I might also blur my face and do the cosplay too.
Sounds amazing!
Such an awesome giveaway! We’ll celebrate the books birthday with tower wars. My kids will be all about that!!
Happy Anniversary!! My older girls read through the series and now my younger boys are on their way through! Thanks for all the stories to get lost in, S.D. Keep up the good work.
We’re planning on making a sweet treat! Nothing gets better than reading together and yummy food!
Happy Birthday! We will celebrate by continuing to read our way through the series. My younger two will celebrate with various sword fights, pretending to be Helmer and Picket, of course! My older two will draw their favorite characters, Emma and Heather and compose a poem about them.
The world you have opened up to our family has been played in daily. Thanks for your wholesome creativity. Such a gift!
Thanks for the giveaway! We’ll be coloring these awesome sheets and make cupcakes with walnuts since we’re out of pecans.
Our oldest two are going to color the free picture whilst we continue reading Ember’s End. They also asked for their younger siblings to start listening to the audio book for The Green Ember this morning, so the whole family is enjoying the tale today!
So many ideas on how to celebrate this anniversary for this fantastic book! I think we will listen to the book again while coloring and making pecan cupcakes (because those look wonderfully tasty!).
Definitely coloring and tower wars.
Happy Anniversary!!! So exciting! The Green Emer Series has been our favorites since the moment we read them we fell in love with the story! They have helped us deal with some hard situations and we’re just so thankful that you wrote the books Master Smith and decided to share them with the world! Thank you!
Today we’ll be making some chocolate chip cookies! Might draw a picture or two, and will definitely be talking about GE throughout the day. Rissy’s working on the last chapter of her fanfic and we’ll spend some time wracking our brain for some trivia for our friends over on NS! But overall enjoy the wonderful day that God has given us!
Thank you for the story that inspired us to chase our dreams!!!
God Bless you and your family!
Congratulations! You have won a Signed set of all 9 Green Ember Series books. Please email josiah@sdsmith.com with a subject line of “I WON a Signed Set of The Green Ember Series Books.” Please include your name, mailing address and Instagram username. Thanks for participating!
Definitely going to start re-reading the series. These are awesome books!
In honor of the Embers End anniversary we’ll be reenacting some of the Green Embers Series greatest battles! Safely, of course.
Have you heard of the endearing Flemish Giants? Big rabbits, with even bigger souls. Full of heart, they have somehow managed to capture ours as well. What better way to celebrate the rabbits in this beloved series than to combine our love of all things beautiful, the artist who paints with words, a young artist who paints with watercolors, and of course the rabbit himself. He is a bigger than life personality poised on perfection. How about dressing our friendly Giant in a smart and not so little suit. Capture his likeness in a watercolor made by his child friends, the ones who understand and love him best of all.
Happy Birthday! We’re not quite at the end of the series yet but we’ll celebrate with lots of tasty treats!! (Any excuse for birthday cake around here! 😉
Happy anniversary, Ember’s End!!! I absolutely LOVE this series (and own every single one of the books, wink wink). I am so thankful that you’ve put these books out there; they were books unlike anything else I’ve ever experienced and I was caught up in them waiting for what would happen next. I also love how you included history in the series! The construction of the series (main books and then side history ones) actually largely influenced my own, because now I’m inspired to write a few side history books ? These are among the best books I’ve ever read and deserve so much more publicity and fame than they do now. Everyone needs to read these books and feel their impact!!
*coughs* Fangirling aside, I know that I would love to celebrate this huge milestone with you guys. I’m a writer too (still yet to be published though!), and so will definitely share in the authorly celebration-ness. Today, I’m going to try something new and try drawing the characters from The Green Ember! I’ve been holding off on doing it since I mainly draw people and thought I’d be bad at it, but today I want to do it and prove myself wrong ? Maybe I’ll paint Nick Hollow in watercolor, or one of the places from the book! I know I’ll be celebrating! ? Unfortunately I am Canadian so can’t do the giveaway (wah), but congrats to everyone who wins!
Congratulations you have won a set of all 9 Green Ember Series Audiobooks!
Please email josiah@sdsmith.net with subject line “I won a Set of all 9 Green Ember Series Audiobooks!”
We will color pages and listen to the first audiobook. So far, my oldest of 5 children (he’s 9) has been reading the series and loving it! No doubt it will become a family favorite!
Happy anniversary, Ember’s End!!! My kids have been loving this series. We bought the entire series for Christmas and my kids didn’t stop reading until they had plowed through each and every book! We plan to celebrate with tower war tonight!
We finished Ember’s End all too quickly! Even while we were reading the book and aware that it was drawing to a close, one of my children put to words what we all were feeling, “I almost don’t want to keep reading because I don’t want the story to end”. It was a sentiment we all shared. My kids began re-reading their Kindle versions of the books as soon as we finished the series and that is what we will do today. I will also post a recommendation on Facebook, advocating for my mom friends to pick up this series and share it with their families!
Tea Parties and read alouds!
I’ll print out the coloring pages for my kids! The tower game looks fun too. Its also one of my children’s birthdays today!
Jennifer! Congratulations on winning a free download of Ember’s End Audiobook!
Please email josiah@sdsmith.com with subject line “I won Ember’s End Audiobook!”
My “celebration” is attempting to listen to all of the books in one day. Wish me luck
I succeeded!!!!! Only took me 1 all-nighter listening at x2 speed
We are a Green Ember Family and are constantly reading or quoting your books! So much to learn from these wonderful stories. Thank you for all the hard work to put them out.
Holly! Congratulations on winning a free download of Ember’s End Audiobook!
Please email josiah@sdsmith.com with subject line “I won Ember’s End Audiobook!”
For the green ember end anaverity i made rabbit cookies and ate them and im reading the embers end. i really hope to get the prize but if i don`t that ok.
I’ve always wanted to try starseek with my energetic siblings…
I’m going to fold another origami bunny, maybe two if I have the time!
I will celebrate by sharing the books with some friends, wearing my oath shirt and checking out the other series that provide background to the Green Ember story
Enjoying the outdoors remembering the peace of a mended wood.
I’m going to celebrate by buying the 3rd and 4th books!
I’ve read almost all your books, and I love them! I’m wearing my tee-shirt and I ate a special snack to celebrate.
We are going to re-read all the books again!
Happy anniversary to Ember’s End, which I say with welling tears. I’m a mom of 5 and I have yet to get my children to read these books! Maybe this is because I gushed over them and asked (begged) for the set for my birthday last year and how could kids love books their mom does (talking/fighting bunnies, anyone?)?! Truly, words can’t explain the deep feelings I get when I think about this series and how the LORD used it to impact my life. Ember’s End reminds me that it will all be over some day and we will have our “Oh Captain! My Captain!” moment in an instant and for eternity. So today, I remember that the King is on His throne and He keeps His promises.
Coloring!
We will celebrate by thanking God for you. Thank you for sharing your talent, and writing books that are good, clean, fun adventure.
We missed out on celebrating today so will definitely do it tomorrow! I will be printing off the coloring sheets and we will continue reading Ember Falls. My 8yr old daughter has fallen in love with your books!
Hooray for Ember’s End! I think we might celebrate with a carrot cake this weekend. Yumm!
Congratulations Sarah! You have won a set of all 9 Green Ember Series Audiobooks!
Please email josiah@sdsmith.net with subject line “I won a Set of all 9 Green Ember Series Audiobooks!”
I will celebrate by reliving my favorite and most meaningful moments…I highlighted TONS of the Green Ember books when I read them 🙂
Well, I tried to get my daughter to do a play on it, but she didn’t. So instead we are going to reread the book! Rabbit themed cupcakes would be fun too.
My kids both wore their Fight Back and Mended Wood tees, yesterday and they didn’t even know they were celebrating. Spooky.
we made cookies shaped as rabbits and read embers end and dressed up as rabbits
My younger sons and I celebrate Green Ember everyday—and we read multiple
Chapters of Ember’s End on the 14th. My oldest son has shared Ember lore and his excitement for rabbits with swords to all his youth group 🙂
We couldn’t do it on April 14, but we’re doing it in a few days: A Green Ember party! We’re using Easter decorations — carrots and rabbits — to decorate, along with 26 quotes on the walls all over the house. For activities we will have archery, sword fighting, storytelling, making Starsticks, playing Pin the Fluffy Backside on the Rabbit (in honor of Helmer), a Find the Green Ember stones game, we’re taking a walk in the “Great Wood” (really just down by a river near our house), and, of course, talking about Green Ember! We’re wearing rabbit ears, eating fruit, veggies, “Firstflower” tea (iced blueberry tea), and carrot cake with small cake topper rabbits on it! And at the front door will be a sign: “Every Bunny Welcome to First Warren!”
That’s really cool! I’m going to have to use some of your ideas!
Happy Birthday! We had a Green Ember birthday party for my daughter’s 7th birthday, including a cake she decorated to be a map of Natalia, carrots and potato (chips), and an archery game. She dressed all in black to be her favorite character, Heyna. My daughter’s favorite part, though, was a surprise note from Zach Franzen, complete with a sketch of Heyna! It is framed and next to our collection of Green Ember books.
I feel like every day is Ember’s End day here! My kids love the whole series and often pretend the characters from the books are a part of our daily lives. I made my son a cloak to act out the story with the swords and gear he has in his dress up bin. Thanks for these great imaginative stories – they pushed my son to read at a higher level just so he could hear what happened next!
Our celebration isn’t very creative – we’re re-reading the books again. I think 11yr old actually has one playing every night.
I’m not sure if this is still viable, but in honor of Ember’s End’s birthday, I’m going to re-read the entire series and maybe even attempt to draw some of the characters.
I’ve really enjoyed all of the books. Thank you, S.D. Smith!
We loved the Green Ember series! We are making sword and rabbit cookies, swords, and playing star seek!
My daughter is coloring the pictures we have, while wearing her oath T-shirt and Heather’s necklace.
I just have to say that this series is my daughter’s favorite – she was a late reader and has some learning challenges, but she has been through the entire series once, and is now going through a second time by audio-book (overdrive at library.) In addition, she is reading these aloud to the entire family – – so, her third trip through the books!! – – which is an absolute joy to us all!! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!
Happy Anniversary!
I will be re-reading the whole series again, and act out one of my favorite scenes.
Thank you for this! Happy Birthday Embers End! We listened to these books as a family on hoopla this past year and we all LOVED them and cried at the end! Such a good story! My kids would LOVE to have the hard cover copies to read the stories over and over again! We celebrated playing tower wars and coloring the amazing coloring pages! ❤️
My brother and I decided to reenact the first chase scene of the series yesterday. But halfway through we ended up playing star seek
How better to celebrate than to listen to (or read) the complete series again. It’s a great way to reconnect with Heather, Picket, and all my other friends from the books. I also love the new coloring sheets.
Celebrating sign sharing the book series with friends!!!
We are celebrating by continuing our journey through book 2, snuggled up in cold Iowa with blankets, munchies, and mom’s reading voice! We’re late to the Green Ember world but loving it!
We love the Green Ember series! This anniversary brings back so many fond memories of finishing the series around this time last year! We will be raising our swords and baking some cookies to celebrate!
Have the winners been announced?
11yr old celebrates by practicing with her bow and cringing every time a hawk calls.