The Witch of Blackbird Pond: A Newbery Award Winner

I’m re-reading some of my childhood favorites, and this delighted me in so many ways. It’s been long enough that I’ve forgotten much of the story, and as an adult I have so much appreciation for Kit’s bravery, kindness, and gradual realization of her identity and what gives her joy. I loved the descriptions of Hannah’s cottage and the peaceful meadows. I almost cried at a few parts of the book. I can’t wait for my children to be old enough to read it.

However - this is a wonderful story and I would highly recommend it to anyone -

Expected a used book for the price but it's like NEW. Thank you!

The Witch of Blackbird Pond may be a work of fiction, but there are many parables with modern life. It's about a white girl, from the sunny West Indies, who moves to the cold, unwelcoming colonies in New England. Her uncle, a Puritan, reluctantly takes her in. Though they treat her as good as as their own children, they're clearly not happy to have her. For starters, the Puritans are serious people, and she's used to play and leisure. The Puritans are austere and Spartan, while she's used to flamboyant luxury. The family's life is preoccupied with hunting, farming, cooking, and cleaning; the kind of stuff one has to do in order to eat. She, however, comes from a wealthy family and has never even cooked for herself. But she learns. The family are Puritans after all, and it's their duty to teach her self-sufficiency. Soon she settles into the routine, cooking meals, cleaning, and teaching young children to read. But Puritan life comes with a problem. The people believe in the existence of witches, and anybody who appears unusual is a suspect. Hannah, a kindly old woman who lives alone, was once a suspected witch. She has a scar on her face as a reminder of how she suffered under the Puritans' paranoia. Worse, she's a Quaker, and the Quakers are despised by the Puritans. Faced with an inquisition-like investigation, she faces the harshness of the Colonial laws of the time. Judge's decisions are not based on codified laws, but on the religious and social mores and norms. Every single good thing she's done since arriving is suspected as an act of witchcraft and subversion. But there is hope. As with today's legal system, success depends on getting the right advocate! Will the townspeople stand up for her and denounce the witch hunts, or will she be tortured by religious hysteria?

I have noticed in recent years that there is a spurt of fiction about witches and ghosts, all written with a tongue in cheek silliness. They are the decendents of Roald Dahl and even as much as I am glad they are out there, I sometime wonder why there aren't more decendents of Frances Hodgson Burnett. Where are the sweetly serious books? This is one such decendant and more should be out there. The Witch of Blackbird Pond is an absolutely wonderful novel of historical fiction that throws early America into stark light. I read this book over and over when I was a child and though I have not read it in 15 or more years, I can still remeber the twists and turns of the plot. History is rekindled through Kit (I can still remember her name), a young emigrant just come to America to start a new life far from her natice Barbados. You see the grey winters, the hard working people whose religion shapes their daily lives, and the fear. Speare brings a small part of reality to life. And that is what is truly missing from so many modern children books. I truly recommend this book to all kids who have a thirst for the past.