My family loves to read. We love to gather on the couch, the chair, the floor, anywhere, and read together. One series that I have been interested in is The Green Ember Series written by S.D. Smith and published by Story Warren.

For this review, I got four hardcover books, The Green Ember, Ember Falls, Ember Rising, and Ember’s End. I also got four paperback books, The Black Star of Kingston, The Last Archer, The Wreck and Rise of Whitson Mariner, and The First Fowler. This is the full series and the prequel series.

We decided to follow the suggested reading, with The Green Ember and the prequels combined. The main series follows siblings Heather and Picket Longtreader. We started with them in The Green Ember. The prequel is set before we even meet Heather and Picket. These are the books that we learn about the characters that Heather and Picket’s dad told them about in the stories he would tell them.

Without looking at the recommended reading order, I would not have mixed the two series together. I am glad that I did. As much as I love a series, sometimes they can get boring, mixing these two kept us interested. I, along with the kids, loved that we would follow Heather and Picket and then jump in and learn a little more about the past that brought them to where they are now with Whitson Mariner, King Jupiter, and Jo Shanks.

When asking my kids which book in the series, they had a tough time deciding. They like the smaller Tales of Old Natalia (the prequel). While the Green Ember books are 300+ pages, the prequels are under 200 pages. However, if asking which one, they would pick Ember Rising. This was book 3 in the Green Ember series. This is a book of struggle but of great things. The ending had not only me crying but the kids also. This book gave them great adventure and excitement, as did all the others, but this was their favorite. I must agree with them.

This is not a curriculum. It is not meant to be one. But we did love reading these books as a start to our homeschool day. It was a fun way to get our minds going. The imagination that went into these books was extraordinary. We loved following along with the great writing and going on the adventures, and challenges, with all the rabbits.

Following the adventures and challenges that the Longtreader siblings had to deal with, we learned a lot about family, trust, and standing up for yourself. We learned about courage and strength when things get hard. We have thoroughly enjoyed reading this series together and love the time that we spent discussing these books. We found this to be an extremely exciting series and were sad when we finished the last book. We were not ready for it to end, but the ending was ever so great.

-Product review by Amanda Hopkins, The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, LLC, August 2020