Review of The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare

This was a favorite book when I was in elementary school and one of the reasons I fell in love with historical fiction as a genre. Typically this book is recommended reading for 10-12 year olds and is a great companion piece if you are learning or teaching the Salem Witch Trials.

Kit was raised in Barbados but upon the death of her beloved grandfather, she sets sail on The Dolphin for the Connecticut Colony to live with her Aunt Rachel, her only relative. Once there, she struggles to fit in among the Puritans, although her cousins, Mercy and Judith, help show her the ropes. In Barbados, Kit was the privileged granddaughter of a wealthy aristocrat but in America, she is expected not only to work all day, but to do chores that her slaves wouldn't even lower themselves to do back home. Meanwhile the young man that Judith likes takes a shine to Kit, and she befriends an old lonely widow, Hannah, who is known as a witch. Hannah, a Quaker, was branded and exiled from Massachusetts. She also becomes friends with young Nat, the son of the captain of The Dolphin, and she begins tutoring Prudence, a child from the village. Kit's fancy ways and her finery and her impetuousness don't gain her any fast friends in the village. Meanwhile, the King is going to rescind the Connecticut charter and wants to give the colony to Massachusetts, which Kit's uncle and many of the other men in town are furious about. You can guess just from the title that at the end, Kit will be accused of being a witch herself.

I thought the resolution to the witchcraft trial was very simple and pat, with the judges showing a great deal of common sense which I'm sure is a bit unrealistic when you look at the history of that time and what went on during the Salem Witch Trials. But for kids this age, it's appropriate. Also the romances all get sorted properly, with Kit and her cousins all ending up with the best men for them. Kit learns to control her temper and her stubbornness a little, and learns that perhaps being taken care of in a fine house isn't all it's cracked up to be. She does a lot of growing up in her year in Connecticut, and I liked how she learned to bend while still remaining true to herself. She's resilient, resourceful, honest, and creative. Kit is a heroine all young girls should aspire to, and young boys ought to be able to identify with the history parts. While she does have a lot of fancy dresses, she's not overly girly. Overall, the book is excellent. It gives a good feel for the era without overly difficult language, has a lot of political and philosophical arguments that kids can debate, and made me want to delve deeper into the Salem Witch Trials.

Book Banning

Today I was reading an article in the Las Vegas Review-Journal regarding reading a banned book today. This resonated with me deeply. I cannot express to you how wrong it is to ban books. Books allow us to learn, grow and become stronger members of society. We do not have to agree with the ideology that is being expressed in the book to learn something from it. I remember being horrified when I found out that a couple of my favorite books I read in elementary school were being banned in certain areas. The books were "The Witch of Blackbird Pond" and most recently "The Diary of Anne Frank." Both dealt with horrible periods in history, the Salem Witch Trials and the Holocaust. We cannot allow narrow minded people to control our views or rewrite history to suit their vision of what the world should be. Most especially not here in the United States where freedom of speech is one of our rights. If you do not feel that a particular book is suitable for particular ages in school curriculums then you do not teach them. That does not mean you ban them and remove them from local libraries.

Quote of the Week

"When somebody tries to ban a book, it's about more than control of the press. It's about controlling what people think, what they can and cannot believe, and the actions that they may or may not take as a result."

Steve Sebelius
Las Vegas Review-Journal