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62nd out of 223 books
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76 voters
My rating:
add to my books
The Witch Of Blackbird Pond
Kit Tyler must leave behind shimmering Caribbean islands to join the stern Puritan community of her relatives. She soon feels caged, until she meets the old woman known as the Witch of Blackbird Pond. But when their friendship is discovered, Kit herself is accused of witchcraft!
Paperback, 256 pages
Published
February 15th 1972
by Yearling
(first published 1958)
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Kit, Katherine Tyler, is a free spirit. When her grandfather dies, she sells off his giant home in Barbados and sets sail to find her only remaining family in Connecticut colony. She weathers a storm, avoids seasickness, and even manages to wrangle two entire conversations out of the blue-eyed son of the ship’s captain.
However, the Connecticut mainland has a sharper edge than any of the challenges on board ship. How can Kit bear the insidious patience required to drop cornmeal in a b...more
However, the Connecticut mainland has a sharper edge than any of the challenges on board ship. How can Kit bear the insidious patience required to drop cornmeal in a b...more
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I really liked this book, and have therefore come to the conclusion that books written for children can be higher quality writing than books written for adults because there isn't this pressure to impress with heavy metaphor and poignant statements about life. When adults write for adults there is too much pressure, adults writing for children understand that it is the story and the characters that matter most, and if those two are well written then I think you have a deep, satisfying book.
I know this is a classic. A Newberry award winner for juvenile fiction, I can hardly criticize such a loved book. Sadly, I did not read this when it was meant to be read, as a youth struggling to know it's more important to do the right thing than to fit in with what everybody else is doing.
Important, worthy lesson, but after reading two young adult novels this week with very similar themes (does this happen to anyone else? I always seem to inadvertently read books in "themes"...more
Important, worthy lesson, but after reading two young adult novels this week with very similar themes (does this happen to anyone else? I always seem to inadvertently read books in "themes"...more
Kp
rated it
·
review of another edition
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
Barnes&Noble.com says 9-12; I'll go ahead and add girl to that.
"Buy the truth, and do not sell it,
also wisdom and instruction and understanding"
-> Psalm 23:23
A wholly satisfying read (and respectable look at Puritan life)!
(I'm a 23 yr old [in college] guy, and->) Who knew I'd get so emotionally invested??
I certainly didn't.
There were several parts when I was legitimately frustrated, angry, and a little teary-eyed (to level with you...).
M...more
also wisdom and instruction and understanding"
-> Psalm 23:23
A wholly satisfying read (and respectable look at Puritan life)!
(I'm a 23 yr old [in college] guy, and->) Who knew I'd get so emotionally invested??
I certainly didn't.
There were several parts when I was legitimately frustrated, angry, and a little teary-eyed (to level with you...).
M...more
There was nothing WOW STUPENDOUS about this book. I like it well enough. The witch trial was my favorite part, but that was the highlight of the whole book for me. The plot was slow almost the whole time.
Kit was an okay heroine. She does what she thinks is right and stands by it but she didn't have much personality. Her spontaneousness wasn't that spontaneous. Kit was rich so she felt very degraded by all of the work she was told to do. That bothered me because she felt like only ser...more
Kit was an okay heroine. She does what she thinks is right and stands by it but she didn't have much personality. Her spontaneousness wasn't that spontaneous. Kit was rich so she felt very degraded by all of the work she was told to do. That bothered me because she felt like only ser...more
This is a breathtaking book. It takes us to Puritan New England, in the colony of Connecticut. Sixteen year old Katherine (Kit) arrives in America after having been brought up by her grandfather in Barbados. Her liberal Shakespeare-reading, ocean-swimming, silk-dress wearing upbringing did nothing to prepare her for the inflexibility and piousness of her aunt’s family that takes her in. In fact, Kit’s free thinking and outspoken ways create suspicion and irrational fear.
Speare’s char...more
Speare’s char...more
A serious favourite from my formative youth, strange and harsh and nearly illicitly romantic so that I reread it, no matter how much Kit's predicament upset and scared me (mobs and trials and institutions are some of my worst fears).
Reading it quickly now - for the first time in English - many decades after first finding it in the small town library, I'm struck by how good a book it is. Many, amongst them the woman who "raised/formed" me as well as Narnia, crumble in retrospect, ...more
Reading it quickly now - for the first time in English - many decades after first finding it in the small town library, I'm struck by how good a book it is. Many, amongst them the woman who "raised/formed" me as well as Narnia, crumble in retrospect, ...more
Jessica
rated it
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review of another edition
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
12 And Up
Shelves:
historicalfiction
Forced to leave her sunny Caribbean home for the bleak Connecticut Colony, Kit Tyler is filled with trepidation. As they sail up the river to Kit's new home, the teasing and moodiness of a young sailor named Nat doesn't help. Still, her unsinkable spirit soon bobs back up. What this spirited teenager doesn't count on, however, is how her aunt and uncle's stern Puritan community will view her. In the colonies of 1687, a girl who swims, wears silk and satin gowns, and talks back to her elders is n...more
I still like to read children's and young adult books. There are so many good ones out there. This has been on my list for a very long time. I thought the author did a good job describing the puritan lifestyle of pre-revolutionary Connecticut. That the main character comes alone from Barbados to Weathersfild is a bit of a stretch but makes for a nice contrast. As an adult reader, I found the outcome somewhat predictable, but it is one that I think a young woman who is interested in his...more
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This was one of my favorite books when I was younger. Despite not being the most flamboyant person myself, it was easy to relate to the main character and her feeling like the only spot of color in a grey, grey world. In the end she's not so much a "feminist figure" as she's just someone who had something to say in a society where what women had to say meant almost nothing.
The Witch of Blackbird Pond is based in 1687 where a teenager, Katherine Tyler also known as Kitt. She lived with her Grandfather in Barbados, but he died. Kitt is forced to go to Connecticut because when her Grandfather died dept was put on her and she had to get away. She begins the story on a ship named the Dolphin which is going from Barbados to Connecticut. On the way to Connecticut Kitt is having a short conversation with the Caption's son Nat Eaton. The Dolphon arrived on the Saybrook Por...more
Kit Tyler, born and raised on a Barbados plantation, finds herself forced to live with her Puritan relatives in Connecticut after her grandfather passes away. Among these grave, hard-working, and God-loving strangers, Kit can’t help but stand out, even as she tries to understand and be accepted into their world. I remembered a fondness for The Witch of Blackbird Pond from grade school, just for being a historical school-assigned novel that didn't bore me to tears- so took an opportunity to rerea...more
One of my favorite historical fictions...because it's not boring!
This is the way to travel back in time; follow Kit as she lands on the bleak shores of Connecticut during the Puritan times. Having grown up in Barbados with a loving grandfather, Kit is totally unprepared for the harsh, hard-working, god-fearing life of colonial America. Her new family; an aunt, uncle, and two cousins, have mixed feelings about the new addition to their household.
Kit finds solace with a...more
This is the way to travel back in time; follow Kit as she lands on the bleak shores of Connecticut during the Puritan times. Having grown up in Barbados with a loving grandfather, Kit is totally unprepared for the harsh, hard-working, god-fearing life of colonial America. Her new family; an aunt, uncle, and two cousins, have mixed feelings about the new addition to their household.
Kit finds solace with a...more
How I missed reading this book before, I will never know. So many historical fiction books have been written about this time period but I loved this one. There are so many facets of colony life brought into this novel. Why are more teachers not using this in the classroom? Some of my favorite parts came in just describing what life was like for Kit in America. The drudgery of preparing food, cleaning, growing food, and the never-ending cycle of work. Makes me very thankful to live in a wor...more
I just read this for the first time since elementary school. It may as well have been the first time ever, because I remembered nothing about it. Quite frankly, I was blown away.
This is a terrific read - well-written, and it weaves historical events into the narrative seamlessly. The messages of friendship were sweet and the connections between the characters were realistic and affecting.
Something that surprised me was how central romantic intrigue was to the story. I'm s...more
This is a terrific read - well-written, and it weaves historical events into the narrative seamlessly. The messages of friendship were sweet and the connections between the characters were realistic and affecting.
Something that surprised me was how central romantic intrigue was to the story. I'm s...more
I’ve been muddling through a few “serious” books for the last several days, so I finally picked up an old friend instead: Elizabeth George Speare’s The Witch of Blackbird Pond.
The book’s protagonist, sixteen-year-old Kit Tyler, leaves 17th-century Barbados to live with her aunt in Puritan New England. Not too surprisingly, Kit does not fit well in her new environment. She has been pampered and spoiled. She is a Royalist and an Anglican. She can swim.
Kit is not the ideal h...more
The book’s protagonist, sixteen-year-old Kit Tyler, leaves 17th-century Barbados to live with her aunt in Puritan New England. Not too surprisingly, Kit does not fit well in her new environment. She has been pampered and spoiled. She is a Royalist and an Anglican. She can swim.
Kit is not the ideal h...more
In 1687, when 16-year-old Kit Tyler's grandfather dies and she is importuned by one of his debtors, she reluctantly leaves Barbados and sails for Connecticut to make a home with her previously unmet aunt Rachel. On board the Dolphin, she makes friends with the sea captain's son as well as a sober young minister also heading for Wethersfield. Unfortunately, Kit also makes an enemy in her future neighbor, Goodwife Cruff, who is suspicious of Kit's exotic background and impetuous spirit, and warn...more
Really I would give this book 3 1/2 stars. I liked it, but it moved a little slow for me. I enjoyed the historical fiction of the new settlements in the "new world" and also of the witch trials and superstitions. I also enjoyed the ending. I guess it was Kit getting into trouble all the time for silly things and the detail of her daily work and the courtships that I grew tired of.
Newly orphaned Kit Tyler’s world is turned upside down when she comes to live in the Connecticut Colony of Wethersfield. After a childhood in Barbados, Kit does not fit in with new family, nor the colonial way of life with includes difficult chores and frequent church meetings. In a life of loneliness and isolation, the only solace Kit finds is with a kindly old woman living out in a meadow, known to the colony as a witch. However, if the townspeople ever knew of Kit’s secret friendship, she too...more
I really tended to love books about girls who were different, who didn't fit into the times or places where they lived. I wonder why that might be? That was sarcasm, by the way. This tale of a girl sent to live in Puritan New England, who chafed against the rules of that society, is one I read again and again in circa 4th and 5th grades.
I have always wanted to read this, so I just did... Obviously an easy read, but I was surprised to see I actually enjoyed it! I had little idea of what puritan life was in the 1600s, and the author really makes you understand both them, and the main character, who is nothing like them.
This was one of my favorite books as a kid so when I saw the familiar cover in the free bin at the library I had to reread it. Oh free spirits in puritan times standing in windswept meadows...
I just finished reading this novel again after almost 30 years. Of course, I loved it, but found it a little to predictable for my older cynical self. However, the first time through at age 11 or 12 this novel left an indelible impression on my younger, sweeter self . . . and if I am remembering correctly it was the first truly beautiful and honest "love story" I ever read. "The WItch of Blackbird" pond is an inspiring, well written classic for any age which will touch yo...more
This book became my instant favorite when I first read it as a teen. Listening to it again after all of this time, I'll once again mark it as favorite. SUCH a good story; SO well written (and researched); SO well read, in this latest version of Speare's book.
It is 1687 and Kit Tyler has fled her home in sunny Barbados to escape an undesirable marriage. With her grandfather’s death, her only living relative is an aunt in colonial Connecticut. Kit books passage on the Dolphin with the last of her money, befriending the Captain’s son, Nat, on the journey. Arriving unexpectedly, Kit disrupts his aunt’s household. Her Uncle Matthew is a strict Puritanical man who speaks out against the King, much to Kit’s dismay. Her cousin Judith resents the attention ...more
This book centers on Kit, a young girl of 16 fleeing her exotic home of Barbados and leaving behind her wealthy, carefree upbringing to enter the Puritan world of New England's suspicious Connecticut. What she finds there with her new family is hardly adventure, little romance, and a lot of work to be done inside and out.
I found this book well written and imaginatively stimulating with engaging characters, believable plot, and applicable themes. Teens will find the subject is historic...more
I found this book well written and imaginatively stimulating with engaging characters, believable plot, and applicable themes. Teens will find the subject is historic...more
Ds and I found two specific examples, but now I cannot recall what they were to share them. They don't make a difference in the story, but a reader shouldn't take the story as factual either. The book is a good story for younger kids to sort of get an idea of what two lifestyles were like: Barbados compared to Connecticut. The laws trying to be changed by the English king and the "rebellion" of the colonists. My ds says it was a little "lovey dovey" and didn't care for that m...more
I found this book at a yard sale for fifty cents and snatched up the opportunity to revisit a childhood favorite. Kit is a great heroine, despite what other reviewers say. I am a big proponent of the strong woman history purposefully neglects to record because of gender politics of the contemporaries who we rely on for enlightenment. Cleopatra, Elizabeth I, Pocahontas...these were women too big to avoid. Imagine all the others who were glossed over because their gender undermined their abili...more
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sentimentality and the appreciation of culture in New England/North America | 3 | 38 | Jul 11, 2007 11:51am |
I was born in Melrose, Massachusetts, on November 21, 1908. I have lived all my life in New England, and though I love to travel I can't imagine ever calling any other place on earth home. Since I can't remember a time when I didn't intend to write, it is hard to explain why I took so long getting around to it in earnest. But the years seemed to go by very quickly. In 1936 I married Alden Speare a...more
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“All the way up the river she's been holding back somehow, waiting. Now you'll both have to wait. I'm not going to disappoint her, Kit. When I take you on board the Witch, it's going to be for keeps.”
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21 people liked it
“There is no escape if love is not there," Hannah had said. Had Hannah known when she herself had not even suspected? It was not escape that she had dreamed about, it was love.”
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11 people liked it
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