![]() ![]() And there on the slowly-cooling anvil was a shining thing of both strength and beauty: lovely and wieldy, and exactly what the world needed. D.’s writing shed, named The Forge, were a real forge, then he emerged after weeks of toil staggering, sooty and steaming, fingers bruised and face seared with heat that he drank several gallons of water, ate a few bites, and collapsed to sleep for days unbroken. Good endings are harder, and endings that really satisfy a sense of true rightness are more difficult yet. ![]() With Ember’s End, Smith set himself a mighty task. Enthusiastic families can’t get enough of these tales. Smith’s stories are captivating readers across the globe who are hungry for new stories with an old soul. Three books into the series, the Mended Wood seems far from sure. The Green Ember has reached hundreds of thousands of readers and spent time as the number one bestselling audiobook in the world on Audible. ![]() If the evil fails to stamp out the king’s bloodline, his friends, and every trace of hope and defiance the rabbits can muster. When the true heir to the fallen king rises, evil will be expelled and the world of Natalia will be restored to peace and beauty. And from the first, the wisest and most hopeful characters braced one another with the refrain, “It will not be so in the Mended Wood.” In the first three books we saw some rabbits rise and grow more beautiful through their hardships, and others slide into selfishness and darkness, perhaps beyond hope of redemption. So far Smith’s series has put a lot of characters in danger, made many homeless, and left others missing in action. It’s also a series about what happens when everything you know is broken by an invading evil the powers of faithfulness and hope and self-sacrifice. It’s a series about anthropomorphic rabbits, villainous wolves, and birds of prey. Smith published the capstone book of his best-selling Green Ember series, Ember’s End. I’m that excited about it.This month my friend S. That includes the West, right? Maybe the Green Ember series will be some of the literary glory entering that future city. The glory and honor of the nations will enter the New Jerusalem. I think the Mended Wood is the New Earth.īut, in a way, the Mended Wood can be both the restored West and the restored planet. But I came to think as I neared the end that the book’s sights are set on something higher and bigger than the future, post-dark-secular-age renaissance of the West. The good citadels are enclaves of the preservation of good rabbit culture. ![]() I said that for a good while I drew parallels between this book and the Benedict Option. But the Mended Wood is coming, and they will be vindicated. My seven-year-old girl understood the cliffhanger ending, which also read as real: prices must be paid by the good guys, even when their cause is righteous. By avoiding cartoonishness elsewhere, the book allows readers to enjoy its virtues. And even those exceptions read as real within the overall narrative. Zeigler, no one was cartoonish, a common flaw among kids’ books. Captain Moonlight, Weezie, Helmer, Picket, Emma, Heather, Jacks-with the minor, partial, possible exception of Captain Vitton and Dr. The characters are well drawn, with personalities the kids could draw from. I felt the story showed respect to the feelings and thinking of kids: it avoided cloying, no-fall-ever-happened saccharinity and yet it didn’t over-burden the kids with darkness. And, more importantly, real hope and real joy. In this story there is a real evil, real danger, real pain. Ember Rising, by contrast, engages the heart with a stirring story. (And the illustrations, by my respected friend Zach Franzen, were also excellent.)įor a good while I was thinking that this book is The Benedict Option for kids-and for adults who dutifully read Dreher’s hot-title-of-2017 but whose affections were not fully engaged by his more prosaic approach (which I did find helpful-this is not a criticism). ![]()
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