The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare

The story does teach the important lesson of learning how to be tolerant of others, even if we disagree with them about certain things. The only discordant note is that Nathaniel utters one curse word when he sees what the townspeople did to Hannah’s house.

There is a little bit of false religion, but nothing other than what one would come across while studying the history of that period. The Witch of Blackbird Pond is great historical fiction, very accurately portraying the character and attitude of the people of New England in the late 1600’s. There is great suspense during this portion of the book. Unfortunately, Hannah accused of being a witch during an epidemic, and after Kit helps her escape, Kit herself, who has experienced no end of problems adjusting to her new home, is also accused of being a witch. Kit also befriends a Quaker woman, Hannah Tupper and a little girl, Prudence Cruff, who is judged by her parents as “slow” but whom Kit teaches to read. There is enough “romance” to make the book interesting but not enough to make it “yukky” for our two boys. Kit meets three young men, John Holbrook who is studying for the ministry, William Ashby who is a wealthy young man, and Nathaniel Eaton who is the son of the captain of the ship which brought her to New England. While the majority of characters and events, especially the story of Kit Tyler, in the book are fictional, Weathersfield was actually one of the first settlements in Connecticut and a few people mentioned in the book, such as Sir Edmond Andros, Captain Samuel Talcott, Schoolmaster Eleazer Kimberly, and Dr. The plot of The Witch of Blackbird Pond, set in 1687, is about sixteen-year-old Katherine (Kit) Tyler, an orphan, who is forced to leave her home on Barbados in the West Indies, due to the death of her guardian grandfather with whom she had lived, to stay with her aunt and her family in Weathersfield, CN. The Bronze Bow and The Witch of Blackbird Pond both won Newbery Awards, the latter in 1959, and The Sign of the Beaver was a Newbery runner-up–and this back in the days when the Newbery award was given for really GOOD children’s literature! This says something about the caliber of Mrs. Speare wrote any other books, but I have read all four for which she is famous: The Sign of the Beaver, The Bronze Bow, Calico Captive, and The Witch of Blackbird Pond (which, interestingly enough, was the first of the four about which I had heard). The Witch of Blackbird Pond (published in 1958 by Houghton Mifflin republished in 1972 by Random House Children’s Books). Language level: 3 (one unfortunate curse word)įor more information e-mail Elizabeth George. Publisher: Random House Children’s Books, reprinted in 1972

The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare