Valentine One: The Witch Of Blackbird Pond

Friday 7 December 2012

The Witch Of Blackbird Pond

Elizabeth George Speare’s The Witch of Blackbird Pond (1958) is a classic work of young adult historical fiction. The novel tells the story of Katherine “Kit” Tyler, a young orphan who, in 1687, travels from the tropical island of Barbados to the stark Puritan colony of Connecticut. With her flashy clothes and aristocratic roots, Kit doesn’t fit in with the piety or plainness of her new extended family. Feeling out of place, Kit befriends another outsider, the Quaker Hannah Tupper. When a fever strikes the children of Wethersfield, the residents accuse Hannah of bringing the plague upon the town. Kit too faces accusations of witchcraft, simply for befriending the woman no one else would touch.