The Witch Child

 

                The Witch Child begins with a young girl in England in the year 1659. This girl, Mary Newbury, never knew her mother or father. She lived in England with her grandmother, who was taken away and accused of witchcraft. Mary flees English witch hunters to settle in an American Colony. She hopes to leave her past behind and keep it secret from the puritans.

I am not very far into the book but I’m finding the prospective very interesting. I found myself resisting the text sometimes because the character is around my age and she is experiencing some very harsh things. Mary watched her grandmother’s trial and she was threatened with death because everyone believed that she was a witch.

Mary is very cautious about what she tells people and how she expresses herself. She makes sure that there are no hints that will lead anyone to believe that she is a witch. On her voyage to America, Mary saves a newborn child from death. People began to say that she “breathed life into the newborn”. But Mary explains that all she did was clear the baby’s mouth and nose so that it could breathe, denying any hint of magic.

I noticed that in the beginning of the book, Mary was not sure if she was really a witch or not. But later on she realized that everything that she and her grandmother were accused of was all lies.

                I remember learning about the Salem witch trials in social studies last year. But I realized that Salem is in America, but in this novel the Witch trials are in England. I’m wondering if later on in the book some people will accuse Mary of being a witch in America.