The Witch of Blackbird Pond (1959)

My rating: 4/5 stars

I am fairly certain that I originally read The Witch of Blackbird Pond when I was in elementary school. As it's historical fiction, it seems likely that it was assigned to me to learn about colonial history. In any case, I remembered none of it, so I figured it was time to reread it.

It turned out to be the perfect chore book, which for me is a book that has chapters of just the right length with which to reward myself after completing some task. It feels like just the right length a break from housework should be: 10-15 minutes. It also kept me wondering what would happen just enough to encourage me to complete another task so I could get back to it.

My quick summary is that Kit comes on her own from Barbados to New England to live with her aunt and uncle, who don't know she's coming. She tries to fit in with the Puritan town, but is an outsider before she even arrives, due to her outlandish behavior and ideas, like knowing how to swim. (!) Of course she makes friends with those who are also outsiders, including Hannah who is the "witch" mentioned in the title. She isn't a witch but rather a Quaker and she helps make the year bearable for Kit, though a bit dangerous as well. There is also a bit of (historically accurate) colonial politics thrown in as Kit's Uncle Matthew and the other townsmen debate the potential dismantling of the Connecticut charter.

I decided to forgive the book its easy resolution of the difficulties Kit faces because a) I like happy endings, b) I liked the characters and c) it's a children's book and not required to delve quite so deeply into what would have actually happened to someone accused of being a witch in 17th century New England. Just seemed like a lot of characters did faster about-faces than they would have, but perhaps I am selling the Puritans short.

My favorite character in the book was Nat, but I suppose the best one in real life would have been Hannah.

All in all a good read, but I don't think I'll be assigning it to my fourth graders any time soon.

Great vocabulary word:

obstreperous: adjective. "noisy, clamorous, or boisterous: obstreperous children"

The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare

7 of 12 for the 2008 Young Adult Challenge
2 of 3 for the tl;dr challenge
1 of 6 for the Classics Challenge
5 of 11 for the Summer Reading Challenge

This is a breathtaking book. It takes us to Puritan New England, in the colony of Connecticut. Sixteen year old Katherine (Kit) arrives in America after having been brought up by her grandfather in Barbados. Her liberal Shakespeare-reading, ocean-swimming, silk-dress wearing upbringing did nothing to prepare her for the inflexibility and piousness of her aunt’s family that takes her in. In fact, Kit’s free thinking and outspoken ways create suspicion and irrational fear.

Speare’s characters are fleshed out and conflicted and it is a pleasure to watch them learn and grow throughout the book. Kit’s constant impulsive decision making and the inadvertent consequences never felt contrived. The time period and its rigid culture played a huge part in the plot of this novel – where seemingly harmless gestures and friendships can somehow make a person seem like a Satan-worshipper and be put on trial for witchcraft. It was a tremulous and frightening time, where politics were a constant topic of conversation as the colonists were just beginning to decide that they no longer wanted a king.

Kit’s indecision about what and who she loves, and where she belongs, rang so true to me. The descriptions of New England itself and of the traditions and chores of the time were expertly woven into the prose. The sprinkling of romance throughout the story fit just right and I loved the ending. If you are a lover of young adult historical fiction, this Newberry Award winner is a must-read.

The Witch of Blackbird Pond

My Newbery Challenge is an audio experience. I listen to the books as I drive from place to place this is a unique way to enjoy books. The Witch of Blackbird Pond was a tale of discovery. The main character Kit bravely sets off to meet her Aunt Rachel in America. She is a proud, spoiled girl who had spent her whole life in Barbados with her grandfather. Upon meeting her relatives and seeing their way of life, she begins to question the decision to come to this new land. Their strict religion and hard work made her long for the freedom and lavish life she once had. Finally, Kit does befriend the local "witch". This leads her down a dangerous path that endangers her life.

I liked the suspense of the many relationship in the book. People had to act a certain proper way. Often times they could not be honest and forthright with feelings and thoughts. Although Kit struggled with this concept, as I would have. I wished the author had included more from the character Mercy. As the lame cousin, she is everyone's comfort. She was stuck in the home alone many times. She probably had a unique perspective on many of the character conflicts.
"'The answer is in thy heart,' she said softly. 'Thee can always hear it if thee listens for it.'" This is great advice for most situations. Listening to your heart can be a difficult thing to do. Hannah, the Quaker, who the townspeople label as a witch seems to be the wisest character. She guides Kit throughout her struggles in the new harsh town. Hannah has suffered a hard life of prison, branding, the death of her husband and isolation, yet as seen in this quote she i still remarkably optimistic.
The ending was predictable, but I wanted it to end as it did. This added warm to the character relationships that seemed so cold throughout the book. I enjoyed this audiobook.

Witch of Blackbird Pond

I’ve avoided this book, thinking it was a rehash of stories about women accused of being witches during the early days of America.

It was about women accused of being witches, but it was really about so much more.

Kit impulsively hops on a ship to America after the death of her grandfather, leaving behind the beautiful tropical islands where she was so freely raised. She goes to find a home with her only remaining relatives, her mother’s sister and her family. Kit’s aunt, she learns, has been worn down by life in America and by her marriage to a Puritan man. But these characters are not stiff stereotypes; the harshly Puritan uncle loves American freedom, not the English king; the dangerous witch the community fears is really a quiet, lonely Quaker woman; the man who loves Kit fails to step forward to help her when Kit is in trouble. An excellent, thoughtful story of how being different can both threaten a society and build a society.

The Witch of Blackbird Pond

I've always been kind of interested in the Puritans - probably because I have a bunch of Puritan ancestors. Many of these men had cool names like Obadiah, Nathaniel, Abram, and Azariah, and the women had even more exotic names: Comfort, Persis, Jerusha, Fear, and (my personal favorite) Mindwell.

And I know that I read this book as a child or adolescent - I remember the cover very well (it was the gothic 70's one above). It sat on my bookshelf for years, next to the other "non-favorites" (like Island of the Blue Dolphins).

But despite my interest in the Puritans and history, before re-reading of The Witch of Blackbird Pond, all I could remember about it was that the heroine's name was Kit and that the Puritans suspected that old ladies who lived by themselves were witches.

I don't know why I didn't really like this story as a child, because this time around I really enjoyed it. I think this is the first time I've totally changed my childhood opinions on any of these books. And I think that The Witch holds up very well, considering it was published in 1958. If I didn't know how old it was, I could easily assume The Witch of Blackbird Pond was written ten years ago instead of nearly fifty years ago.

The characters in The Witch are all interesting, complicated people, with lots of shades of gray in them (instead of the absolutes you might expect of the sadly stereotyped Puritans), and there is suspense, romance, and a lot of good history. I think Speare does a rather wonderful job of balancing an interesting story with complex history.

There's a witchcraft scare, but there's also good description of the religious and political differences amongst the colonists (I never knew about the Connecticut charter), slavery, and the sheer amount of work involved just to survive in the late 1600's in New England. The Indians get rather short shrift in The Witch, in historical terms, but maybe Native-European relations would be better served in different book, anyway.

On one of the coldest days of the year here in Michigan, I particularly enjoyed Speare's description of Kit's first winter after her arrival from Barbados:

January dragged by, and February. It was the hardest winter most of the townspeople could remember. Old people shook their heads, recalling blizzards of their childhood, but it was impossible for Kit to visualize anything more bleak than this first winter of her experience. She no longer saw any beauty in a world muffled in white. She hated the long days of imprisonment, when there was nothing to see through the window but shifting curtains of pale gray, when drifts stood waist high on the doorstep, and it took hours of backbreaking labor to carve a passage to the well. She hated the drafty floors and frigid corners, and the perpetual animal reek of heavy clothes hung about the fireplace to dry.

Every night she shrank from the moment when she and Judith must make the dread ascent to the upstairs chamber with only the meager comfort of a warming pan. But impatient as she was with the long days indoors, the outdoors promised only aching misery. She resented the arduous preparation for the journey to Meeting, the heavy leather boots, the knit socks drawn over them, the clumsy little footstove they had to lug all the way, that cooled off long before the sermon was finished and left one to sit with stinging fingers and toes, while the breath of the whole congregation rose like the smoke from so many pipes (p. 234-5).

I think older kids (especially girls) would enjoy this more than younger Newbery readers, especially given the romantic part of the plot, but there's nothing inappropriate for an interested third or fourth grader. But encourage your kid(s) to try it again when they're 14 or 15 - they might like it more then.

The Witch of Blackbird Pond

at my blog.

Title and author of book? The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare

Fiction or non-fiction? Genre? Young adult historical fiction, Newbery winner.

What led you to pick up this book? It was one of my chttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifhoices for the Newbery challenge. I actually thought I had read it and this would be a re-read, but it turns out it wasn't familiar at all.

Summarize the plot, but no spoilers! It's the late 1600s, and Kit, who is a teen from Barbados, is left without any family or money after her wealthy grandfather dies. She takes a ship to Puritan New England to live with an aunt she's never met. The way of life there is very different from what she was used to. Not only does she work hard from dawn until bedtime, but even her clothes are shockingly bright and colorful compared to the dark clothes the Puritans wear. Somehow, in spite of her status as an odd outsider, a wealthy young man in the village takes an interest in her and starts to court her. Meanwhile, one of her two girl cousins is also being courted. Kit and the other cousin, Mercy, run a school for very young children. Eventually, Kit meets an older woman, a Quaker the town is suspicious of. Eventually, there are accusations of witchcraft.

What did you like most about the book? I liked the historical aspect best, but I also liked the characters, especially Kit and Hannah, the Quaker woman.

What did you like least? I found it implausible that the wealthiest bachelor in town would set his sights on Kit when she seemed so strange to the townspeople. I also found that, like in many historical novels, there were attitudes and behavior attributed to the main characters that are more in line with how people today think and act.

Share a quote from the book:This is Hannah, the Quaker woman: "'The answer is in thy heart,' she said softly. 'Thee can always hear it if thee listens for it.'" I liked that partly because it's sensible advice, partly because it seems in character for a Quaker, and partly because Kit does listen to her heart later, and finds an answer to something that is not what she and Hannah were discussing when Hannah gave her that advice.

What did you think of the ending? It ended just as I expected it to, but a younger reader may not have found it as predictable.

The Witch of Blackbird Pond

The main character, Kit, is very likable and readable. Her glamorous parents died when she was young. She is raised by her grandfather who appears to have been a champion of education, free thinking, strength, and "girl power". When her grandfather dies she sails from Barbados to Connecticut to live with her mom's sister, Rachel.

As you'd expect, Connecticut in 1687 is not overly receptive to Kit's free-wheeling though well intentioned ways. She struggles to find a fit within the socially and religiously conservative colony. No spoiling . . .

I really enjoyed this one. I thought it was a good mix of entertaining and educational. I would definitely attempt to persuade my daughter to read it when her attention span gets a little longer (she is 6 years old). I think this book brings that whole "trying to find a place, trying to fit in" into a good spot for thoughtful consideration. While most may say that finding a place is hard for all adolescents, I think it is definitely harder for some than others. This book does an excellent job of portraying this process. I know that I am always on the look out for a "secret society" of thinkers similar to myself, even as an adult.*

As an orphan (since age 9), I've always been a big fan of the orphan books. My sister tells me that the orphan component per her early childhood education courses is necessary because it forces/speeds character development of independence and other life skills that blossom much more slowly (if ever) under the watchful eye of helicopter moms and dads.

I think my next book will be Elizabeth George Speare's The Bronze Bow (her other Newbery Winner).

*Try as I might I have not been able to line up many friends (even my smart ones) to participate in a reading project like this. I don't think it is just because I live in Louisiana (ha ha), I think it is just part of the finding a place true to you sort of thing.