Elizabeth George SpeareReseñas

A moving re-read, a decade after memorizing portions of the story to perform. My perspective has changed and new elements stood out to me. But it's still interesting historically and culturally, and both inspiring and challenging religiously and personally.

“Why do they say she’s a witch?” Prudence demanded, as the two walked slowly back along the path. “Because they have never tried to get to know her. People are afraid of things they don’t understand. You won’t be afraid of her now, will you? You will go to see her when you can, even if I’m not there?”

Sixteen year old Kit has lost all of her family in Barbados. Under some vague circumstances, she hastily gets passage in the first available ship to seek out relatives in the colony of Connecticut. Kits rather privileged upbringing causes an immediate clash with her Puritan relatives, and she seeks out the company of a Quaker woman who has been ostracized from the community some people believe she is a witch. Not all people or things are what they initially seem to be in this story though.

This book was written in 1959 and won the Newbery Medal. The writing still holds up well and is equally readable for adults and children.

The book is about a young girl who finds herself displaced from Barbados by a death in the family and debts galore. She ends up taking a ship and travels to her distant family in New England, whom she has never even met. Where things are entirely different from her carefree life to a harsh and strict, superstitious town where people can turn on you for the tiniest hint of non-conformity. Who is worth trusting and how do you survive! Can she find love in any of the faces she meets? I loved this book and have read it more than once. A fast and intriguing read for all ages.

Louisa Knight Goodreads.com Review:
Age: 10 - 12
Reading Level: 5th - 7th grades

Cleanliness:

Children's Bad Words
Mild Obscenities & Substitutions - 5 Incidents: demmed, golly
Scatological Terms - 2 Incidents: bl**dy (This is used biologically to describe blood flow but has been noted as this word is offensive in some cultures.)

Religious & Supernatural - 3 Incidents: A Native American speaks ritualistically to a fish and later to a bear after he kills them. An Indian Religious story told in response to a Bible story. The Indian says that he goes to find his "manitou," meaning spirit. (Indian coming of age ritual).

Romance Related - 1 Incident: Indians are mentioned a few times as being "half-naked," wearing only breechclothes.

Attitudes/Disobedience - 2 Incidents: A boy lies to a stranger saying his father would be back "anytime now" when in fact his father is away for months. (Lies for safety reasons). "The boy glowered at his grandfather, but he did not dare to speak again. With a black scowl, he stalked out of the cabin." To avoid offending his Indian friend, Matt lies about the character Friday not being a slave to Crusoe when he reads him the story. "When the Indian got that disdainful look in his eyes, Matt hated him." Later in the same paragraph, however, it describes how although they still don't like each other, they are no longer enemies.

Conversation Topics - 5 Incidents: A boy wonders if he actually could shoot a man, "even a criminal". The main characters read Robinson Crusoe together and a section of the story they read says," One of the captives they mercilessly slaughtered. The fire was set blazing for a cannibal feast." A pipe and smoking are mentioned a few times. Racism: "My grandmother hate all white men." His father had always "forbidden him to gamble."

Parent Takeaway
There is some racism throughout the story (from the Indians side), but as the two boys spend a summer together, this is overcome and a close friendship is formed. When winter is setting and it doesn't seem that Matt's father will ever return, the Indians tell Matt they will take care of him, but he must leave with them to a far away land. In the end, Matt decides he can't let his father down but must keep the house and land secure for if/when he does return.

AR: 4.9

After Daniel bar Jamin's father is crucified by the Roman Empire, Daniel wants nothing more than to rid his land of Israel of Roman control once and for all. Yet when David meets Jesus of Nazareth, a traveling carpenter with a gentle message of love and forgiveness, David starts to realize that the hate festering in his heart might be his true enemy after all.

Early one morning in the year 1754 the stillness of Charlestown, New Hampshire, was shattered by shrill war whoops and the terror of an Indian raid. Young Miriam Willard, on a day which had promised new happiness, found herself instead a captive on a forest trail, caught up in the ebb and flow of the French and Indian War.

It was a horrowing march north. Miriam could only force herself to the next stopping place, the next small portion of food, the next icy stream to be crossed. What waits at the end of the trail--besides an Indian quantlet and a life of slavery?

Based on an actual narrative.

Independent reading level: 5+
Awards: Newbery Award

I didn't think I was going to like this book after reading the first few chapters; too many hot-headed religious types for my taste. But I stuck with it, and was pleasantly surprised. I predicted long before how it was going to turn out. But it is sometimes not an unexpected conclusion that makes a book worthwhile, but rather how the author takes the reader to the longed-for conclusion. And there were a couple of surprises after all. I'm glad I gave this one a chance.

"Kit," the teenage heroine, leaves Barbados to go live with her aunt and her aunt's husband and children, none of whom has she ever met. Kit does a colossal job of not fitting in - so much so that the fanatically religious Puritans decide to put her on trial as a witch. But Kit is not the eponymous "witch of Blackbird pond." That appellation belongs to another - a poor, elderly Quaker woman, who is also in great danger from the community.

Although he faces responsibility bravely, thirteen-year-old Matt is more than a little apprehensive when his father leaves him alone to guard their new cabin in the wilderness. When a renegade white stranger steals his gun, Matt realizes he has no way to shoot game or to protect himself. When Matt meets Attean, a boy in the Beaver clan, he begins to better understand their way of life and their growing problem in adapting to the white man and the changing frontier.

Elizabeth George Speare's Newbery Honor-winning survival story is filled with wonderful detail about living in the wilderness and the relationships that formed between settlers and natives in the 1700s.

In this Newbery Medal-winning novel, a girl faces prejudice and accusations of witchcraft in seventeenth-century Connecticut. A classic of historical fiction that continues to resonate across the generations.

Sixteen-year-old Kit Tyler is marked by suspicion and disapproval from the moment she arrives on the unfamiliar shores of colonial Connecticut in 1687. Alone and desperate, she has been forced to leave her beloved home on the island of Barbados and join a family she has never met.

Torn between her quest for belonging and her desire to be true to herself, Kit struggles to survive in a hostile place. Just when it seems she must give up, she finds a kindred spirit. But Kit's friendship with Hannah Tupper, believed by the colonists to be a witch, proves more taboo than she could have imagined and ultimately forces Kit to choose between her heart and her duty.

READING LEVEL: 4.9 AR POINTS: 5.0
(Ages 9-11, grades 5-7)
Newberry Honor Book

What a great story full of adventure and survival for any young boy to read. Thirteen year olds back in those days were very mature and independent because they had to be. Today, most thirteen year olds that I know are like spoiled little baby pigs...squealing and complaining, selfish, expectant, wasteful, know-it-all and giving their parents hell, and especially lazy. I should know...I raised three of them. Hell, I was a know-it-all thirteen year old, myself. You can't teach somebody something if they already know everything, right?

In 1768, Matt Hallowell was almost 13 years old when his father left him alone in the Maine woods to watch over their new log cabin they just built on their purchased land while he headed back to Quincy, Massachusetts, to fetch Matt’s mom, sister, and their newly born baby. He would be gone for 6 weeks.

When a white scallawag of a fur trapper came traveling through, Matt fed him and let him sleep in the cabin, but by morning the stranger had left and had left with Matt’s shotgun, his best chance for food and protection, which his father had left with him.

When Matt got himself into trouble climbing a tree, trying to steal honey from a beehive and was stung all over, he could have died had it not been for Attean and his grandfather, from the local Beaver tribe, who had been watching him from a distance and came to his rescue.

In return for saving Matt’s life, Matt would agree to try and teach Attean to read white man’s words from the Robinson Crusoe novel, and so the ensuing friendship began. The friendship would slowly develop as the trust between the two developed, bringing each other into the other’s world and culture. Matt learned from Attean and his people how to survive out in the woods alone. But, more importantly, he learned that they weren’t all savages. In return, Attean learned that not all white people were hard, ruthless and careless people, even though the whites had killed his mother.

This is a great little book for young people to learn that not all people in any one culture are cut from the same mold. In other words, don’t judge a whole race of people, no matter what race, by the bad behavior of a few. Take the time to learn from each other because there is always something to learn.

READING LEVEL: 5.7 AR POINTS: 9.0
(10 years, grades 5-7)
Winner of the Newbery Award

A classic originally published in 1958, and won the 1959 Newbery Medal.

I thought this was going to be a fantasy novel about witches and sorcery. I wanted to read it because 1) It's a classic; 2) It's pretty highly rated; and 3) I'm looking for good books for my grandies.

No worries here. This is a great historical novel based on the true facts about how the early Puritans so easily labeled women who didn't conform to their liking as "witches". Such ridiculousness! And, it is actually a sweet and innocent coming-of-age, and finding love, kind of novel. Young love is so fresh, innocent and beautiful. The author captured it perfectly. You know what I mean...when she's betrothed to one snarky, rich man but suddenly makes a connection to someone else who she has so much in common with and not much else to give...but he's the one you're rootin' for. Unfortunately, the very end fell just a little bit flat for me.

How did a free spirit survive in Puritan New England? Speare imagines an answer to that question through the vibrant character Kit Tyler. The narrator for the book assumes each voice in the story with ease and I was transported to a time and place radically different from my own.
Classic memorable tale.

It's a splendid book in almost all ways. Good character growth, exciting plot turns, excellent sense of place, complex protagonist. But read with 2023 eyes, the little bit of questioning of slavery is not enough, and the attitude toward Indians is hard to take. The comeuppance of the mean wife/mother is a little icky too in its gender politics.

But again, mostly splendid. Sorry I didn't read it when I was young but I glad I finally read it now.

I read this as a child and after re-reading it, I remember why I loved it so much. Kit is a strong woman with a huge spirit. As a child I wanted to grow up to be like her. As an adult, I can say that in many ways I did. This is not just a book for children. It's a book for all who need encouragement to be true to themselve

Wonderful story!

I had a copy of this book years ago as a pre-teen yet never read it. I’m glad I waited till I was an adult as I think I appreciate it more.

Kit is a remarkable character and to watch her find herself, he inner strength as the story unfolded was great to read. This story is a wonderful tale of how things aren’t always what they seem and how people can be very quick to make judgments on things that they don’t understand. Yet the trials and uncertainties of life, while painful, can also teach us not to give up and not to jump to conclusions just because something or someone is different from what we think of as normal.

0.90

Historical Fiction middle grade novel set in frontier Maine.

13-year old Matt must survive at his family's new homestead while his father travels back to his old home in Massachusetts to retrieve his mother, sister and new baby sibling.
Matt suffers quite a few setbacks during the wait for his family to arrive. He is aided by a Native American leader and, a bit reluctantly at first, by his grandson, Attean, who is around Matt's age.

There is some racial sensitivity shown by Matt towards Attean (when reading portions of Robinson Crusoe), and I enjoyed the friendship which developed between Matt and Attean.
But there are other historical points, such as what homesteading did to Penobscot livelihood, which aren't fully explained.

Someone recommended this one to me as a children's classic, one which I had never read.
I do remember seeing an edition of The Witch of Blackbird Pond as a child and the cover was a bit dark and frightening, so I never picked it up.

I did enjoy reading it now as an adult. Excellent piece of historical fiction set in Connecticut colony during the 1600s. A Newbery Medal winner in 1958. I think I would classify it more as young adult or at least upper middle grade.

I enjoyed it so much, I've now searched out some more Elizabeth George Speare books. Currently trying The Sign of the Beaver which itself is a 1984 Newbery Honor Book.

This was a fantastic Newbery. I would read it again.

I read this quickie because I was reviewing its acceptability for 8th grade literature when we are studying the Salem Witch Trials. I had read it 30-40 years ago and liked it. However, while still a good read, it's more about "love" than about witches. This "love" is very chaste and hearts beat from afar, but not enough about the Puritans and the witches! 261 pages

Amazing, couldn’t put down.

I really liked this book when I read it in middle school. I haven't really read it since then. But the story was just really vivid in my mind. I like authors who not only tell a story, they paint a picture so vivid you can just imagine your there. Plus the whole, fish out of water plot was something I related to.

Had never read this before but I had it recommended in another book I read and so I did. It's well written and just flies by. Utter fascinating!