First published 2003
Kit Tyler stares at Connecticut's harsh coastline and knows her Caribbean home is gone forever. The orphaned teenager must now live with Puritan relatives in a community where her island ways mark her as different. Kit feels trapped like a caged bird until she discovers freedom in the local meadows. There she befriends Hannah Tupper, an elderly Quaker woman the townspeople call the Witch of Blackbird Pond. Kit also grows close to Nat, a young sailor who understands her longing for warmth and acceptance. But when the stern Puritan community learns of Kit's visits to the supposed witch, suspicion falls on the girl herself. The colonists' fear and anger soon transform Kit from an outsider into an accused witch. She must now fight not just for acceptance but for her very life in a place where being different can mean death.
Genres: historical, historical-fiction, coming-of-age, young-adult
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, outsider
Setting: Connecticut, Blackbird Pond
Period: Colonial America
Paperback · Holt McDougal