It is 1687.  Kit Tyler is an independent girl who is forced to leave her home in Barbados to come to the new and rough country of America.  What she finds there is very different from what she expected.  But with her new family and a few special friends, Kit finds a deeper meaning to life and discovers more about her true self in the process.

When I picked up “The Witch of Blackbird Pond” and read the back, I already knew who Elizabeth George Speare was.  I love many of her books, so expected to find another book to love.  I was surprised to see the back of the book saying that “The Witch of Blackbird Pond” was about Kit’s learning to “follow her heart”.  That’s not good, I thought, but trusted Mrs. Speare too much to put the book back down.  I was not disappointed.  I’m not sure where the author of the back of that edition got the idea that Kit learned to “follow her heart”.  She does not.  What she learns is to read her heart’s intentions and thoughts better, to control her impulses, to appreciate hard work a little, the value of friends, the consequences of disobedience, not to judge people right off the bat, and the power of love.  As usual, Mrs. Speare crafted an engaging, entertaining and educational story.  And though the words “heart warming” are such a cliche, the book is “heart warming” too.

Honestly, I think there is nothing in here that would be inappropriate for a small child.  There is a touch of romance, but far from being inappropriate, and there are indeed mentions of the colonial’s ideas of what a witch is, and some of the comparatively milder things that happened to supposed “witches” is mentioned, but in no detail.

But I still think that a very young child would not appreciate it as much as an older, so I would put this in the age category of 8+.