Witch Child

Rees, Celia

ISBN 10: 0763614211 ISBN 13: 9780763614218

Publisher: Candlewick Pr, 2001

Synopsis

This spellbinding story will transport readers to a time long ago, but one that might not be so different from the world today. (ages 12 and up)

"First they 'walked ' her, marching her up and down, up and down between them for a day and a night until she could no longer hobble, her feet all bloody and swollen. She would not confess. So they set about to prove she was a witch. . . ."

Enter the world of young Mary Newbury, a world where simply being different can cost a person her life. Hidden until now in the pages of her diary, Mary's startling story begins in 1659, the year her beloved grandmother is hanged in the public square as a witch. Mary narrowly escapes a similar fate, only to face intolerance and new danger among the Puritans in the New World. How long can she hide her true identity? Will she ever find a place where her healing powers will not be feared?

Though Mary's story takes place 350 years ago, she is a credible and engaging feminist character for modern times. WITCH CHILD will compel readers to ask themselves: how much have things really changed?

About this title

Review:

Age 10 and over

She was locked in the keep for more than a week. First they walked her up and down, up and down between them, for a day and a night until she could no longer hobble, her feet all bloody and swollen. She would not confess. So they set about to prove she was a witch...

Mary's grandmother is executed for witchcraft, and Mary is forced to leave her home to avoid the same fate. At first she flees to the English countryside, but when the atmosphere of superstition and suspicion becomes all consuming she leaves on a boat for America in the hope that she can start over and forget her past. But during the journey, she realises that the past is not so easy to escape.

Witch Child is a complex, absorbing novel, told in the form of pages from a journal found loosely sewn into an old quilt many years later. From the moment the story begins, the tension is tangible, and the reader is drawn into a world of mistrust and uncertainty that shakes to the core. All this is cleverly conveyed through the eyes of Mary, whose first sense of wide-eyed wonder gradually develops a mature understanding of her situation, drawing the reader in to a dark and dangerous world where the tiniest slip could mean death.

Celia Rees, always a fine writer, tackles her subject with serious and sensitive aplomb, bringing together a sense of history with an extraordinarily powerful and thrilling story that is unforgettable.--Susan Harrison

Review:

`As psychologically acute account of moral panic as you could hope to read and a fine weapon with which to arm any child in the battle against all its modern forms'
--Guardian

About this edition

• Publisher: Candlewick Pr
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0763614211
• ISBN 13: 9780763614218
• Binding: Library Binding
• Number of pages: 272