Summary
Kit Tyler, at sixteen, had to leave
her home in Barbados after the death of her grandfather. While Kit
had grown up the pampered granddaughter of a wealthy plantation
owner, his death left her penniless. She boards the Dolphin and
journeys to Connecticut to stay with her mother's sister in the
Puritan community of Wethersfield. Kit finds a life so completely
alien to what she has known, that she has a difficult time trying to
fit in. Kit must put away her colorful clothes and don the dress of
Puritan New England. She is unused to hard work, but she tries to do
the never ending daily chores needed for survival in this New England
town. There is little understanding and patience for Kit, the life
of Puritans in the American colonies is a difficult one, and everyone
must do their share of work. Although Kit eventually comes to love
the family that has taken her in, she still feels bereft of friends
and misses the warmth of Barbados.
When Kit visits Blackbird Pond for the
first time, she feels like she has found a haven of peace. There,
she meets Hannah Tupper, a Quaker and outcast of the Puritan
community. Hannah is kind and seems to know how lonely Kit is. Kit
returns again and again to visit Hannah, despite her uncle's warnings
that the witch of Blackbird Pond is not a person she can associate
with. When illness arrives in Wethersfield, Kit helps to nurse her
cousins and takes on all the chores the girls did together. Kit
hears the rumor that Hannah is to be blamed for the illnesses that
has spread throughout the community and she runs to Blackbird Pond to
save her friend. Barely able to make it out of the Pond alive,
Hannah is secreted upon the Dolphin and taken to another community.
Kit is arrested and tried as a witch. With the help of her friend
Nat, Kit takes on the community that seeks to brand her a witch. Kit
teaches the community about tolerance for others, and she finally
becomes accepted.
Impressions
The Witch of Blackbird Pond is a book
about a Puritan community in the 1600's. The harsh winters, the
everyday toil of survival, the cautious way the people view
outsiders, all combine to introduce to readers the kind of life
building a new colony demands. Elizabeth Speare discusses how
candles are made, and how wool is made into thread for the weaving of
cloth. The daily chores are tempered with quiet reading of the
bible in the evenings. Community gatherings include corn husking
which is eagerly attended by the young cousins because that is their
social life, and the chance to find someone who will ask to marry
them. The preparations a young man goes through when he determines
who he will marry include building his house, even before he
proposes. The courtship takes place in a group setting, with the
parents present. The King of England is far removed from the colony,
but his representative is sent with soldiers to enforce the King's
demands. The tension in the community mounts with this intrusion
into their quiet life, and the Puritans begin to take sides.
Students who read this book will be amazed at how different their
life is compared to Kit's. The intolerance of the past was based on
religion, but the intolerance of the present is based on so many
different things, like economic, racial, sexual, and social
distinctions.
Use in the library
The librarian can recommend historical
fiction in collaboration with Social Studies or Language Arts
classes. The book lends itself to the study of the early colonial
period in American. Many colonists left England to avoid religious
persecution and intolerance. The book discusses how Quakers and
Puritans did not see eye to eye regarding religion. It also
discusses the superstitions of the times and how easily the town
branded Kit a witch because of her association with Hannah. Study
guides could be developed to draw out the reader's interpretation of
the issues. A diagram of characters and how they react to the events
of the times. Students can also discuss how marriages were settled
in those days, and how difficult the daily life was like in the New
England colonies. Students can develop a double column sheet
comparing the life during the Seventeenth Century with the life that
they know now.
Reviews
"When young Kit Tyler comes from
her Barbados home to colonial Connecticut, she is unprepared for the
austerity of her uncle's home. Kit, a staunch royalist, accustomed to
the easy life of a slave-manned plantation, and her fanatic Puritan
uncle are instinctive antagonists. But despite her tastes for finery,
Kit is possessed with courage and conviction. Her spontaneous
friendship with Hannah, an old woman whose Quaker affiliations have
branded her as a witch, and her secret teaching of a young child who
suddenly is stricken with a strange malady, seriously threaten her
safety. For the townspeople are mistrustful of this strange girl who
already has startled them with her "magic" ability to stay
afloat in water. Kit's vindication, her gradual integration into the
community and the positive effect she has on those about her, combine
here in a well documented novel to rival the author's first work,
Calico Captive, which received wide acclaim as a work of 'superior
historical fiction' ".
Reviewed by Kirkus Kirkus Reviews
Issue: Oct. 1st, 1958
Resources
Speare, E. (1958). The witch of
Blackbird Pond. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
[Review of book The witch of Blackbird
Pond, by E. Speare]. (1958). Retrieved from
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
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