We are story formed creatures. The impact a true, good, and beautiful story can have on a life is, quite simply, remarkable. As the lovely Karen Swallow Prior says in Booked: Literature in the Soul of Me,
“Books have formed the soul of me. I know that spiritual formation is of God, but I also know—mainly because I learned it from books—that there are other kinds of formation, too, everyday gifts, and that God uses the things of this earth to teach us and shape us, and to help us find truth.”
As our first post of 5 Days of The Green Ember series, we are delighted to be sharing a conversation with author S.D. Smith with you. To say speaking with him on one of my most favorite topics was amazing might be an understatement. He shares a beautiful message directly for your children at the end. We hope you enjoy this podcast and are so very blessed! You can also download the transcript below.
Listen here: A Conversation with S.D. Smith
A Story Formed Life Giveaway
Because we are so passionate about the power of story AND such big Green Ember fans, we decided to have a fun giveaway to go with our 5 Days of The Green Ember series!
Enter in the Rafflecopter form below for a chance to win: The giveaway has ended but you can get your own copies of the books through the links below.
- John Ronald’s Dragons – perfect for the kids to learn about Tolkein
- C.S. Lewis’ On Stories – great for your moderate to stiff stack of Mother Culture reading
- Caught Up in a Story by Sarah Clarkson
- The Green Ember by S.D. Smith
- The Green Ember medallion ornament from Eddy Efaw pottery
Download the transcript for today’s podcast below
Books by S.D. Smith
The Green Ember
Ember FallsEmber RisingEmber’s EndThe Black Star of KingstonThe Wreck and Rise of Whitson MarinerThe Last ArcherThe First Fowler
About Author S.D. Smith
S. D. Smith is the author of The Green Ember Series, a middle-grade adventure saga. The Green Ember spent time as the number one bestselling audiobook in the world on Audible. Smith’s stories are captivating readers across the globe who are hungry for “new stories with an old soul.” Enthusiastic families can’t get enough of these tales.
Vintage adventure. Moral imagination. Classic virtue. Finally, stories we all love. Just one more chapter, please!
When he’s not writing adventurous tales of #RabbitsWithSwords in his writing shed, dubbed The Forge, Smith loves to speak to audiences about storytelling, creation, and seeing yourself as a character in The Story.
S. D. Smith lives in West Virginia with his wife and four kids.
I love Heather! 🙂
I cannot wait to start reading these to my kids!
I just read the first few pages thanks to your post and I love the introduction. I can’t wait to read the rest with my kids.
Love this series.. can’t recommend it enough!
Favorite character.. oh that’s hard. I’m drawn to so many of the characters.. like Maggie Osage for example. And Smalls. And Heather and Picket of course. And Helmer. I could go on and on. It’s a fabulously written series.
I love Heather and Picket because of their fierce loyalty to each other, their family, and their friends, and because they both use their talents in every way they can to bring about the mending. I think those are traits that our kids definitely need to see in characters they love!
Exited to discover this series. Thank you for making it available.
We’ve enjoyed listening to the audio books and hope that more of the stories will become audio books. I like all the main characters, but Heather and Mrs. Weaver are the ones coming to mind as favorites for now.
Thank you so much for the opportunity to enter this giveaway! What a great blog you have!
I’ve never read any of these books before so don’t any of the characters.
My daughters love Emma, & my son loves Pickett, Helmer & Smalls. He really just loves all the stories. He has them all on audiobook & listens to them over & over.
I think everyone in my family has a different favorite character….my son loves Picket, and my daughter loves Heather (I often catch them reenacting scenes from the book acting as the characters). Smalls is my personal favorite. The one thing we all agree on is how wonderful these books are. S.D. Smith has written some amazing stories!
I don’t have a favorite character because we haven’t read the books yet! ? I pre-ordered the whole set with the new book though & plan to start them as our family read-aloud as soon as we get them ?
I have just found these books and am excited to find a favorite character but I don’t have one yet.
Is have to say Emma is my favorite. Or Maggie Weaver.
I do not have a favorote character as I havent read these books yet.
Really like to win 🙂
Thank you for such an inspirational blog.
Oh how can you choose one favorite character! Smalls is my favorite. My sons all have a different favorite. Helmer, Picket, Cole, and Jo. We love these books so much.
I love Heather and her mom. My boys love Helmer, one of my sons dressed up as him for our homeschool dress up day!
Fav character is probably Emma!
What a great giveaway! My boys love all The Green Ember books and are anxiously awaiting the next one. They are fans of Pickett
We are enjoying the series! My oldest has read all of them and the rest have listened to The Green Ember audiobook. Maggie Weaver was a memorable character to me, but my oldest said Helmer was fun and he liked Pickett too.
I love Emma. She is so patient with her patients.
I agree. The green ember opened a whole new world for my kids ♡
Heathet
My 8 year old loves these books! She was so worried that the cliffhanger at the end of the last one was it. She is so excited to hear there is another book coming out. I’ve only read the first one so far. Heather may be my favorite character, but I also love how much Picket matures.
We haven’t read this series yet, so I am anxious to get started!
We love heather and her drive for what is right and true
We were just going to start this series. I think we may wait until the drawing. ?
My son’s favorite character is Picket.
I’ve not yet heard of these books?! We’re just getting started with our homeschooling journey, so I’ll be adding these books to our list of reads for sure!!! 🙂
We have not yet read any of the Green Embers series yet. It looks great!
We love the Green Ember Series! My favorite character is Helmer. He has such a deep loyalty and love, but a gruff exterior!
This momma loves Sween. The fact that she sings as an act of rebellion in the lair of the birds of prey just speaks so much hope and light into that dark place.
We adore this series. We love HEather and Pickett
wow what a prize! This is a lovely opportunity to discover these great books. It is so wonderful to read the thoughts and experiences created in these lovely books. Out of these book new experiences are discovered!
We have not read any of the Green Ember series yet, but we are hearing so much about them recently! I think they will be our next read aloud. Can’t wait!
I’d never heard of the Green Ember stories before today, but I couldn’t stop reading the sample on Amazon! Oh, for more stories of courage!
This is such a great series! Picket is the favorite!
I haven’t read the Green Ember book yet but I would love to. We love fantastical books. Looks like it would make a nice bed time story book to read over a few weeks.
I have been wanting to read this series to my children for a while now. 🙂
I have heard so much about the Green Ember series, but have not read it with my kids yet. My oldest is 6, with three younger sisters, so I was not sure when to begin, but it is definitely on my list!
The Green Ember sounds like a wonderful book / series! We have yet to read this, but would love to make it an addition to our library. Can’t wait to “meet” the characters to decide who our favorite it!
My 5 year old absolutely loves Green Ember. We read it before bed, and he’s always listening to an audiobook.
I haven’t read the Green Ember series. It sounds good.
I love listening to your 10 minute podcasts! Makes it easy to listen while in the car. We have yet to read the Green Ember series but I am so excited to start it with my kids!
My daughter has read the first one in the series and loved it. Hoping to get the rest of the series.
This would be a new read for us! Thanks for bringing to our attention.
Emma is my favorite! We love this series.
I haven’t read the green ember yet so I don’t have a favorite character, but I can’t wait to read it with my kids!
The series will be captivating to read!
We’re excites to start reading!
I’ve really enjoyed this series! Thanks for doing this giveaway.
I found The Green Ember 3 years ago. I love the story almost as much as I love LOTR and it’s been so much fun sharing it with my kids. I hope I win the contest! I don’t have great luck winning, but fingers crossed!
Wow, so excited about this contest, interview, and community! My son loves this series and we have all the books and have pre-ordered the next one already! Heather is my favorite character;-)
I haven’t read the Green Ember series yet but I love C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien so I am very excited to try the Green Ember books!
Exited to start this series tonight!! Just downloaded the audiobook!!! CANNOT WAIT!!
I have not heard the books yet. My boys have them on audible. They play them at bedtime so I haven’t listened yet.
Emma is my favorite character, but my boys love Picket ☺️
Heather because that is my name and as a child I named all my favorite things Heather.
I haven’t read this series yet, but have heard lots of good things about it. I’m also really drawn in by the covers. I can’t wait to find out who our favorite character will be! 🙂
We haven’t read these yet as our kids are still young readers and are just starting to really get into reading on their own. I think these look like lovely stories for them to either read aloud or perhaps as a family reader. We don’t enjoy ebooks or audiobooks either. For me, there’s nothing like holding a printed book in your hand and reading it.
We haven’t read the series yet, our librarian is working to get the books in for us. I am so excited to get started.
Our favorite characters are Helmer and Picket!
I read this series last year (and can’t WAIT for the last book to release!!) and have been trying to convince my mum to read them to my siblings ever since!!
It’s SO hard to pick favorites, lol, but… I think perhaps Smalls? (Though I absolutely love Helmer as well!)
We also do not have a favorite yet as we just started this series on audiobook. I’d really love to buy the books because I love holding an actual book when I’m reading. Thank you for a chance to win these books!
I like Emma.
I love this series! I have read it for myself, and hope to read it to my girls when they are a couple years older.
Fabulous selection! Thank you for this opportunity.
So hard to pick a favorite (because we love them all) but probably Emma!
What a wonderful selection of books!!
Thanks for the giveaway, I get these books for gifts. Heather is my daughter favorite
We are just starting the series, so don’t have a favourite yet 🙂
Thanks for a chance to win this lovely package of awesome books!
I just started reading the first book, so no favorites yet, but my kids have been loving them!
We haven’t read them yet, so no favorites YET, but I recently bought most of the series on kindle.
We would love this pack! Such a cool giveaway!
We LOVE The Green Ember series! My favourite character is Picket! 🙂
My son read these and loves them so much! He has told all his friends about them. He kept begging me to read them and at first I put it off, but once I started I couldn’t put them down! Heather & Mrs. Weaver are two of my favorite characters, and he loves Helmer & Picket!