Summary
British author Celia Rees invites readers to enter the world of fourteen-year-old Mary Newbury. Hidden until now in the pages of her secret diary, Mary’s story begins in England in March 1659 as she witnesses her grandmother, Eliza Nuttall, being tortured, tried, and eventually hung as a witch. She flees England and the witch-hunts with a group of Puritans to settle in colonial America, an odd place of security for a young girl presumed to be a witch. On her voyage over to the New World, Mary makes friends with Martha, a woman who, like Mary, is traveling alone and has a great knowledge of herbs and potions, and Rebekah, the dutiful daughter of one of the prominent Puritan families on the ship. Mary falls under the colony’s suspicion when she chooses to explore the surrounding woods, which are shunned by the fearful colonists. It is in the dark woods where she meets and befriends some of the spiritual native people, including a Native American boy, Jaybird. These friendships only make suspicion grow of Mary’s true nature. Celia Rees’ Witch Child reveals what it is like to live in a climate of mistrust and faithfulness in which differences are dangerous and rumors can kill, where Mary must hide her heritage as a healer and pagan.
Witch Child is a powerful story that brings Historical America and the Salem witch trials to life. Being told by means of fourteen-year-old Mary’s diary, the reader is immediately swallowed up into her life of suspicion and fitting in. Rees’ story is honest and heart wrenching, a great book to add to any collection.
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