The Witch of Blackbird Pond-Review
I would give this book four stars out of five.
The descriptions paint masterpieces in your mind. For example, the author describes one of Kit’s first glimpses of Connecticut as follows: “The bleak line of shore surrounding the gray harbor was a disheartening contrast to the shimmering green and white that fringed the turquoise bay of Barbados which was home.” The entire book is about learning to live in Connecticut after her pampered life in Barbados and that line sets you up for how life in Connecticut will be more difficult, bleak, and dreary than Kit’s perfect life in Barbados.
This book also promotes a strong message: instead of hating and fearing people who are different, learn to understand them. The author conveys this message by making the people who seem weird in the context of the book seem normal to us and the normal people (the Puritans) seem weird. In the book Kit is the odd person who doesn’t like going to church all day and who likes wearing pretty clothes. We’re more like Kit than like people who only read the Bible and worry about witches. So when Kit’s persecuted for being a witch you identify more with the girl who has been struggling to fit in than with the people who think someone is practicing witchcraft.
The only bad part about this book is that the ending sounds more like Cinderella than real life. All the girls get the man of their dreams and live happily ever after. For a serious book with deep themes, the end seems flimsy.
The descriptions paint masterpieces in your mind. For example, the author describes one of Kit’s first glimpses of Connecticut as follows: “The bleak line of shore surrounding the gray harbor was a disheartening contrast to the shimmering green and white that fringed the turquoise bay of Barbados which was home.” The entire book is about learning to live in Connecticut after her pampered life in Barbados and that line sets you up for how life in Connecticut will be more difficult, bleak, and dreary than Kit’s perfect life in Barbados.
This book also promotes a strong message: instead of hating and fearing people who are different, learn to understand them. The author conveys this message by making the people who seem weird in the context of the book seem normal to us and the normal people (the Puritans) seem weird. In the book Kit is the odd person who doesn’t like going to church all day and who likes wearing pretty clothes. We’re more like Kit than like people who only read the Bible and worry about witches. So when Kit’s persecuted for being a witch you identify more with the girl who has been struggling to fit in than with the people who think someone is practicing witchcraft.
The only bad part about this book is that the ending sounds more like Cinderella than real life. All the girls get the man of their dreams and live happily ever after. For a serious book with deep themes, the end seems flimsy.