Let me confess to you straight out that I tend to have a bias towards the older, time-tested children’s classics. I love them! But I do realize that all classics were new at some point in time and that just because an author is now dead does not mean their books are good or wholesome.

As much as I get excited and feel compelled to tell everyone I know when I discover a classic work of children’s literature that I missed out on as a child, I’m even more excited when I discover books of equal value that are being written today. They may be hard to find at times, but they are being written.

S. D. Smith’s The Green Ember is just such a book. Smith’s desire is to tell new stories with an old soul, full of old virtues and “vintage adventure”, and that’s just what he did.

My children & I loved The Green Ember. It is the story of two young rabbit siblings, Heather & Picket, who lived very ordinary lives (supposing you were a talking rabbit of course) in Nick Hollow until their family was kidnapped and their home destroyed by an army of evil wolves.

The Green Ember features adventure, suspense, and a wonderful selection of inspiring quotes. . . . . .

The story is full of nourishing themes: good vs evil, redemption, self-sacrifice, loyalty, bravery — all the good stuff that feeds the imagination and inspires children (and all of us really) to be the heroes of our own stories. There is much in it that reminds me of The Chronicles of Narnia and The Hobbit.

I have been wanting to get my hands on this one for a long time! When The Green Ember was first published, it created quite a stir among my online book club members, and I was quite excited by the rave reviews it received from many of my favourite authors, bloggers, and book reviewers.

My search for a place to buy the book, however, came up empty. Even my public library said they couldn’t purchase it. So I bought the audio version of the book (it’s narrated by Joel Clarkson and is very well done!) and continued to check Amazon.ca, hoping it would be made available in Canada.

I’m pleased to be able to tell my Canadian readers that The Green Ember (and many other hard to find books and curricula) is now available in Canada from Classical Education Books! Shopping with Classical Education Books makes things so much easier for Canadian homeschoolers — prices listed are in Canadian dollars so you don’t have to try to figure out exchange rates, orders are shipping from Canada so you don’t have to worry about extra shipping costs, duty, or brokerage fees.

Many thanks to Classical Education Books, who provided me with a complementary copy of this book for review purposes. I was not required to write a positive review, and all opinions expressed here are my own.