After reading the Sign of the Beaver and enjoying it, I decided to read this book by the same author, Elizabeth George Speare. The Witch of Blackbird Pond, like Sign of the Beaver, is the Newbury Award winner for 1959. The setting is Connecticut around the late 1600s. It is a time when the Puritans and Quakers battled for freedom in the new America.
Our main character, Kit, has just arrived from Barbados. She is seeking to live with her only remaining family members, the Woods. From the beginning Kit's lifestyle conflicts with the Puritan way of life she is faced to live. Kit is headstrong and defiant and often reaps the consequences of her actions, regardless of her motives.
This is a good choice for a novel study for Grade 5-7. There is fragments of a love story in the novel, as girls of Kit's age were considering marriage. Though the book is fictional, Ms Speare does incorporate the real-life characters of Sir Edmond Andros, Samuel Talcott, Eleazer Kimbeley and Reverend Bulkeley.
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