The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare

A book review for young readers

The Witch of Blackbird Pond is about a sixteen-year-old girl who grew up on her grandfather's plantation in the Caribbean. When he dies in 1687, she finds out his property has to be sold to pay his debts. Her only other relative is an aunt who married a Puritan in Colonial Connecticut.

The story begins with Kit Tyler aboard ship, having sold her slave girl to pay the passage, about to arrive unannounced on her aunt and uncle's doorstep. Impulsive, warm-hearted and courageous, Kit is as out of place in chilly New England as a tropical bird. The austere, self-denying Puritans of Wethersfield misunderstand her generous impulses. It seems everything she does meets with shock and disapproval, even from the wealthy beau she attracts.

Homesick for Barbados and even for the ship captain's free-spirited son, she finds consolation in a few friendships, especially with an elderly woman, an outcast Quaker who lives in a small cottage by Blackbird Pond. It's dangerous, though, to make friends with the "witch" of Blackbird Pond. Kit's uncle warns her never to go there. Already, people are suspicious of Kit. If she is accused and convicted of witchcraft, she could suffer the Puritans' severest punishment, death by hanging. But although she has made enemies, she has also made more and better friends than she realizes.

Kit's instinctive kindness will win readers' hearts. As her challenges mount, readers will keep turning pages to find out what happens next. The Witch of Blackbird Pond is a lovely novel, as fresh and moving today as when it was first written. (1958; 223 pages)