Happy Birthday to The Archer’s Cup!
“We spend so much time fighting in this war; maybe we should fight for love just as fiercely.”
Jo Shanks
In this sequel to The Last Archer and The First Fowler, Jo Shanks is charged with aiding Emma on her mission to unite the secret citadels in their fight against the Preylord slavers. Alongside Cole and Heyna Blackstar, Jo and Emma must enter into the heart of a community in confusion.
Something is wrong at Blackstone Citadel. Can Jo and his friends solve the mystery and enlist Blackstone’s aid in time to rendezvous with their allies fighting for the Mended Wood?
A citadel on the edge.
An insidious mystery to unravel.
WHO WILL TARGET THE TERROR?
Fans set to work uncovering the mystery as soon as they got their hands on this new book.
A new book brought new challenges. What were they? Watch the video to hear from the author himself.
Here is what YOU are saying about The Archer’s Cup.
Have you made your way to the end? Share your thoughts at Goodreads, Amazon, or Audible. Your reviews are deeply appreciated.
Just to make sure EVERYONE gets something cool from The Archer’s Cup fun, here’s a free coloring sheet!
You can get more awesome coloring pages when you “Gimme 5.” It’s easy and you can do that here!
Fun Fact: The Archer’s Cup shares a birthday month with National Play Outside Day! Don a Green Ember costume (inspiration here), bow & arrow, and head for the woods.
S. D. Smith was recently a guest on The 1000 Hours Outside podcast where he traced his storytelling abilities back to the early years of his life where he ran wild in the woods of West Virginia, immersing himself in nature and in his imagination.
“There’s probably nothing that’s been more formative for me as a storyteller and in my vocation than those early years of my life playing imaginatively and running wild in the woods of West Virginia.”
S. D. Smith
We love seeing you play and create in The Green Ember World. Use #rabbitswithswords and tag @sdsmithereens and @thegreenemberofficial on Instagram or Facebook for a chance to be featured in our next video!
Wind down with a cozy drink inspired by lalla oil.
“If you need to sleep instead of staying alert, I have just the thing for that too. Lalla oil works every time.”
Brew some chamomile tea or, if you’re feeling adventurous, try a sleepytime tea latte.
Sleepytime Tea Latte
You Will Need:
- 1/4 cup hot water
- 1 chamomile tea bag
- 1 peppermint tea bag
- 3/4 cup steamed milk
Steep chamomile and peppermint tea in hot water. Add steamed (or frothed) milk.
Optional: sweeten with honey. Enjoy!
Recipe from here.
New to The Green Ember? Get started with the first audiobook for FREE.
If you would like your very own, you can find great deals such as a SIGNED copy of The Archer’s Cup (*for a limited time) at the S. D. Smith Family Store. This book is also available on audiobook, eBook (and print) at Amazon and your favorite bookshops.
Did you know: if your library partners with Hoopla, you can listen to ALL the audiobooks for free?! Make sure to check with your local library & follow the recommended reading order.
More Birthday Fun: Giveaway!
In honor of The Archer’s Cup’s Birthday, here’s what we’re giving away:
( 1 ) Complete SIGNED set of ALL 9 Green Ember Books
( 1 ) Complete set of The Green Ember Series Audiobooks (9 audiobooks in total!)
( 1 ) SIGNED copy of The Archer’s Cup
( 1 ) The Archer’s Cup Audiobook
For a total of 4 winners!
To Enter:
Comment (here / Instagram / Facebook) with your favorite game to play outside.
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.
Winners will be selected and notified on Wednesday, November 17th.
Thank you for celebrating The Archer’s Cup’s birthday with us!
Check out these other birthday celebrations:
My favorite game to play outside is either playing star seek with one of my neighbors, or the neighborhood kids get together sometimes at night, and we play a game called “game night,” where we first swim in our neighbor’s pool, then we will play kickball, and finally, we will play some random games like: tag, freeze tag, blob tag, bang, or boo.
We love to play cornhole!
As a kid, I loved playing night games with the neighbors. We would do tag, ghost in the graveyard and made up other fun games involving all of our backyards that were close by. My kids love adventuring up the hills of the Palouse! They often play the roles of Heather, Picket and Smalls and use sticks as swords!
Hide n Seek is my favorite game to play outside!
Awesome! Today I’ll don on my sword and trek into the depths of the woods. Can’t wait for the next book!
Our favorite outside game is knights. We take our swords, don our blanket capes, and set out to rescue the fair maidens and vanquish the foes in Green Ember style!
My favorite thing to do outside as a kid was sledding. As an adult my favorite thing is just being in the woods.
I love boating outside! I’ve been boating since I was born, basically, and now I get to take my kids! I like to wakeboard and I love tubing a swimming with my kids!
My kids’ favorite thing to do outside is dig holes in the yard, tie ropes around tree limbs and swing from them, build makeshift treehouses in the trees, and make potions out of whatever organic goodness they can find on the ground.
My favorite outdoor game is croquet. My 11yr old said his is, “Bunnies, of course! What else would it be?!”
My daughter’s favorite outside game is tag. We love the Archer’s Cup!
As a kid, my favorite outside game was probably kick the can. Now, pickleball is my favorite outside game. I also enjoy throwing a frisbee and playing tidal ball on the beach.
Our favorite game to play outside is Tennis and anything involving playing in the dirt!
My favorite game would be capture the flag out in the woods!
We play a made up seek and find game. One person hides a set of items in the yard and then everyone else seems them.
Tag, capture-the-flag, manhunt and ga-ga are some current favorite outdoor games!
Our favorite game as a family outside is hide and go seek. ❤️
My seven year old has read all four of the “main” books and has the other ones on her wish list. She says they are her favorite!
My family loves playing a giant size game of chutes and ladders that we made up. It works great at the park where you can use actual slides. We also love playing Kubb.
We love playing Kubb!! My husband is Swedish so it’s a staple around here.
My boys’ favorite game to play outside is soccer with the dog. Its really funny to watch them kick it and she runs after it to try to play the back and forth that comes with soccer. I don’t really enjoy playing outdoor games as an adult, but as a kid I always loved four square, jump rope, and any form of climbing on jungle gyms. Or better yet, the wind through my hair as I ride on a bike (still love that!).
We have enjoyed the first book but do not have the rest yet! Happy Day!
Our favorite thing to do outside is hiking, archery and horseback riding!
a few of favorite outside games are crochet, bocce and slack line!
My favorite outside game is rock climbing. I also like bike riding
My daughter loves your books! I asked her and she said her favorite game to play outside is “fish tanks”. ? I think it involves drawing an elaborate world with chalk.
My sister and I love to play Bouncer!
Love your books SD Smith!!
I started doing LARP at age 8, a lot of people look at me weird when I say that, but what it is, is Live Action Role Play. Getting dressed up and weaving myself and the character I’m portraying into a story with a group of others is something I’ve completely fallen in love with <3 (as well as fencing and archery)
Horseback riding.. but my girl is ready and willing to do so much more, her old man is just trying to keep up with the ball of energy.
Our favorite game to play is a family game of baseball or tag.
We love playing games on the tramopline! Sometimes we have made up Green Ember games, too!
Our family favorite game to play outside is probably Throw Throw Burrito Extreme Edition – everybody loves running around throwing giant inflatable burritos at each other, and there’s giant card game craziness in the middle as well.
Our family likes hiking together and playing Pooh Sticks at bridges. Our youngest daughter likes to play four square with our neighbors.
We love playing capture the flag out side!!!
My families favorite outdoor thing to do is ride bikes, which our 3 girls quickly change into a game of anything horse related. Horse racing, horse dressage, and my least favorite…horse jousting. Thanks for all the wonderful stories!
Our favorite outside things to do are camping and hiking. But those aren’t really games. I remember playing Red Rover outside as a kid and enjoying it.
My daughter loves your books and is excited for the next one.
The Archer’s Cup is the only one she actually has a physical copy of.
We love hiking, kicking the soccer ball around, or playing field hockey. Your books have been a big hit at our house!
It would be a toss-up between Frisbee golf in our woods or golf!
Whip, Baseball, Lacrosse, Get The Boot, and The Game In The Wingfeather Saga Where You Have To Get The Apple Before The Guy Smacks You With His Stick.
Starseek is a really fun one for me! We love to play camping as well!
We love hide-and-seek in the dark!
Yes! My nice and nephew LOVE that!
Baseball, Tag, Capture the Flag…I’m not picky 🙂
My favorite game to play outside is hide and seek tag. It may be childish, but it’s so fun
Pretending to be kids that have armor with wings attached to them and we go on adventures and we can fly because of our armor. Sometimes we read books and we go into the giant forest and find dragons.
My favorite game to play outside is anything that involves exploring nature spaces. Love to climb and build
My kiddos love to play tag outside. I just like being outside and taking walks.
Some of my favorite games are four square, horse riding (barrel racing, roping, western pleasure, trail riding, games), and a Star Wars game me and my bother made up where we would build pretty good forts in/on the edge of the forest and fight off the Empire.
I love many outdoor activities. When I was young we created a giant hula hoop and I loved playing with it. I think playing large group games, like capture the flag, are some of my favorite things to do outdoors now.
Whenever my nice and nephew are over, we go outside ( no matter the weather ) and play Pilgrims Progress. We also play a form of the Green Ember and they nickname me Heather.
Playing Pilgrims Progress reminds me of the Green Ember. We have the dark and the light. In Pilgrims Progress, Christian goes through struggles along the way. Same with the Green Ember. But we have can press through, and fight the good fight.
Our family loves good ol’ hopscotch!
Psst! Come over here! Is it safe?…I have a secret to tell you. Our family hasn’t read a single Green Ember book. Really. I know! (We have used S.D. Smith’s Green Writer classes to inspire our homeschool writing curriculum for our 11 year-old.) But we’d love to start the series this fall! They sound wonderful!
We have a lot of games that are different for each: youngest, Ethan, loves baseball and football with neighbors, first born daughter, Jadyn, likes hide-n-seek with cousins and dance parties with neighbor girls, my husband and I like anything played together outside as a family:-)
Oops! I forgot…our favourite game to play outside is crockicurl. It’s a Canadian thing 😉
Our favorite game to play outside is pickleball
We made up a game that we call Koob. It is rather simple: each player chooses a character (Either one they make up, or one from a book,) and they have to find–outside–something related to that character. For example, if you were Heather (tehehe Green Ember reference) then you could be looking for some sticks and maybe a bit of ribbon, too. Then, when everybody has found their object, you make a fortress out of rocks/wood/pine cones/anything, really, and place the object on top. Finally, we throw random stuff at each other’s fortress, screaming battle-cries in the form of quotes made by your character. (We’re a bookish family . . .)
I still love Badminton!!
Our favorite fall game to play is “Find the Rabbit.” We take my daughter’s Holland Lops and toss them into huge piles of leaves. As we toss them, they strike a “super-bunny” pose with a look of glee on their little faces because maple leaves are like candy to rabbits. They sink into the pile as they land, tunnel around to find the choicest leaves, and just start munching away, while we try to figure out where they are.
Our favorite game to play outside is freeze tag and anything that involves running. My kids can easily be distracted by a passing squirrel or other animal though. 🙂
Lately we have been playing Four Square with the kids outside, which has been really fun!
My favorite game to play outside is soccer. My kids love playing sports outside as well as any pretend games.
We’ve spent the summer creating a campsite hangout in the woods behind our house. The kids love digging, climbing trees, building forts and fires, and hide and seek! It’s been a great spot to explore and let our imaginations roam!
My boys, ages 17 and almost 14 LOVE these books so much that they jump at the chance to order every time a new one is released! You have inspired the oldest to write his own books and he is registered for your workshop as well! We also purchase and send the books to friends and family for every gift giving occasion! Keep up the great work! You make a difference in the loves of others in ways I think you did not anticipate!
My favorite outside game to play is frisbee golf! It can be a little competitive, but also a fun game to challenge myself to do better! Plus, if the course is set up well, you get some good exercise too! 😉
My favorite game to play outside is Marco Polo, in the swimming pool or on the trampoline
Our favorite right now is the swings!
I like to play 9 Square In-the-Air or volleyball.
I’m not sure if it’s considered a “game”, but my 2 yr old and I look for slugs and worms as we walk around our property.
There are so many fun yard games. Our current favorite is Slamball. We also love to play all sorts of water games. We set up zones with different water activities all around the yard.
Poohsticks!
Tag with my boys
Our favorite game to play outside is mini tennis. We set up a portable net in our driveway, draw a court with sidewalk chalk, and the neighborhood kids join in and play for hours.
Thanks for offering this!
Our favorite outdoor game is soccer. However, my kids would live outside if they could and are constantly building forts, hiking, climbing trees and playing keep away with the dog… who they’ve renamed “pink tongue garlackson”
Our favorite game to play outside is soccer.
We love to play outside in the snow. Snowball fights are the best!
Our kids love to hunt for bugs…to squish! Haha! They have a favorite oak tree in our yard where they enjoy studying ants and bugs, too.
One of our favorite games to play outside is gaga ball!!
My favorite outside game is ultimate frisbee. Used to play a lot in college… now I need to get my kids into it. 🙂
My favorite game to play outside is baseball with my family.
We love playing hide and seek as a family!
I had to ask my children and I think the consensus on our favorite outside games are anything involving water- from water balloons to snowball fights and building snowmen. My 8 year old also likes “nature tic tac toe” where you use long grass to make a game board and things you find in nature for X’s and O’s Like flowers, leaves or pebbles. And now I want to go play outside! ?
Knights, tag, and trampoline.
On behalf of my 10 and 6 year old boys- Our favorite game to play outside is to run around with swords and pretend we are characters from whatever our favorite book/movie/game is at the moment! We also love to listen to video game music outside (Super Mario Brothers and Legend of Zelda are favorites) while swinging as high as we can!
My younger kids love playing explorer. They build forts, have stick swords, and stay for hours in the woods.
My favorite outside game since I’m a grandma now is watching my grandsons on the trampoline.
My favorite is jumping on the trampoline.
Horseshoes!
We love making up obstacle courses to run outside with the kids!
Volleyball, swimming, playing in the sandbox
We like to play croquet the best!
Our family’s favorite game to play outside is mini golf on vacation!
My favorite game to play outside is tag team racing.
In the summer – swimming, and in winter – building a snow igloo!
We’re a family of makers. We love to create things. One of our favorite things to do is create dens or homes for various animals with found objects. We also love a good game of kickball, bug collecting, creek stomping, or kayaking.
Badminton is a favorite here at our house!
My kids love to play nerf battles or capture the flag outside. Capture the flag is best at night!
Our favorites games to play outside are capture the flag, any sports games like football, soccer, baseball and volleyball. We love all your books, so thankful for the opportunity to enter!
We are a large family that loves to “tweek” rules of old games. Everyone loves dodgeball, cornhole and a game they made up called Daddy-ball.
We love corn hole! ??
We love to play croquet as a family outside.
Right now our favorite thing is playing board games outside! My boys have a little weekly meeting and due to covid, the families prefer they stay outside. Otherwise, we’re playing catch or frisbee.
My favorite game to play outside when I was a kid, was making pretend restaurants. All the “food” was made from mud, leaves, sticks, rocks, flowers, etc. I loved being outside and pretending. Now my daughter has started to do it too all on her own.
Our favourite game to play outside is Kuub, or Viking Chess. So much fun, that even our rooster tries to join in ?
Nerf battles and Hide and Seek are probably our favorites around here.
I always loved playing capture the flag as a kid with all of my cousins! Great memories.
Love Bocce cause anybody can play
I like to ride my bike outside.
I love playing corn hole now, but as a kid, capture the flag, sardines, and volleyball were favorites.
We just love to just walk outside. Whatever happens, happens as we don’t really organize our play. I guess we are weird.
As of late our most played game is “chase the toddler around the yard to make sure she doesn’t get into too much mischief” ? So excited to share all these stories with our girls once they are a little older!
Mini golf is my speed.
We love to play kubb!
My kids and I like to play four square on our driveway.
We don’t have a particular game but we like to take walks with our dogs and search unknown treasures with the metal detector.
We like to play Kick ball!
We love a game of ultimate frisbee with friends! My youngest loves to play with the neighbor’s new puppy…they wear each other out!!
My son’s favorite thing to do outside is have sword battles, make forts out of anything, and race his friends!
We love to play soccer outside! Or Swim!
Our favorite is riding bikes or the old fave of tag.
We love to play frisbee golf!
My kids loving creek stomping and forest exploring with their best friends.
We love playing soccer or tag outside!
My kids love to play Star Wars outside!!
Our family loves to play hide and seek, freeze tag, and anything involving capes/costumes. My favorite is our family hikes through the woods as we pretend we are on an epic adventure!!
Our favorite family game is cornhole or soccer.
Our favorite games to play outside are football, soccer, and just running around and enjoying the nice weather. Happy birthday!????
My family loves to play cornhole or washer toss outside, especially when we’re camping!
We love the outdoors! Whether it’s riding horses and hiking, swimming or playing a game of tag, we love it.
My kids favorite games to play outside are tag, sword fights (with sticks or whatever they can find), tennis, soccer, whiffle ball, hiking and exploring in the woods, and building forts (if that’s a game).
My son said his favorite game to play outside is Capture the flag and I’m sure my daughters would say Fairies or Hide and Seek.
My girls enjoy playing manhunt outside with all the neighborhood kids. I’m a fan of kickball lately!
Spider in the web
Our favorite is playing soccer outside.
My favorite game to play as a kid was manhunt in the dark! Our church was surrounded by a hunting property and I’d always go hide in the woods! It was the best hahaha
Tag and it’s many variations is my kids’ go to! There is nothing quite like chasing one another and laughing outside ?
Capture the flag!
Favorite outside game: Golf!
Even in the winter we just bundle up, layer up and enjoy the sunshine.
My son’s favorite outdoor game is dodgeball.
My kids love to make up games and funny names. Some of my favorites are pig missile, tortilla rhino, and leprosy. ?
I love to find shapes in the clouds with my kids. Their minds are so unique! Also, capture the flag is awesome.
My boys all love playing war games outside. Sticks make such great swords!
Soccer and tag
As a family we enjoy swimming in nearby lakes, and I also enjoy getting shooting lessons from my husband in or backyard.
LARPers here (live action role playing), complete with homemade swords, capes, helmets, etc
My two kiddo’s love to play outside on the beach, their favourite beach games include touch rugby, sand ball fights and pirates. Arrr…
My favorite outdoor game is Frisbee!!! We love your writing!
My favorite thing to do outside is hiking but my favorite outdoor game was/is hide and seek and in the winter fox and geese.
We love using the seek app to learn about plants and animals we find. And my son is always playing football if there is any possible way he can.
We love kingdoms lawn game!!
me, my brother, and our friend LOVE playing survivor