Name: The Witch of Blackbird Pond
Rating: 4.03125 (112 reviews)

Mary Ellen Snodgrass

Elizabeth George Speare

Teacher's Guide

The Witch of Blackbird Pond

This was the first book that made me stay up all night to read it. It had a huge impact on me as a young reader. A beautiful snapshot of life in the early colonial days of the US and an insightful commentary on prejudices and marginalized peoples. 

Holly Rutland

This Newbery Award winner brings to life the witch hysteria of Puritan New England.

This book gave me cottage core vibes! I didn’t want to finish it!

irina

Kylie Conklin

Akanksha Chattopadhyay

A cosy little book which I would, perhaps, have loved a lot more had I read it about a decade earlier. The tale is a neatly constructed one with all the necessary tropes including a strong young heroine, a bleak alien land, nature's bounty, a "fairy godmother", a nasty female villain and perfect matches for all our girls promising a happily ever after, and touches upon the more serious questions of dislocation, feminine identity and colonial autonomy as well, not to mention the Puritan-Royalist debate.
The one thing about the book that leaves me slightly vexed is its use of, what seems to me, a pseudo-archaic English for the dialogue. Though I must admit that I have close to no idea about how the early American settlers spoke, the perfectly contemporary speech, strewn around with a few "'Tis" s and "'Twill" s did not sound too convincing.
The Witch of Blackbird Pond, all in all, was not a bad read.

Emma

Okay, so I really wasn't sure what to make of this book at first as it started out so slowly.. and then remained slow paced, but it was really good! By the end I was completely satisfied with every character's ending. I am more than pleased to have ended up finding this book and giving it a real chance.

The Witch of Blackbird Pond Teacher's Guide

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