The Witch of Blackbird Pond

Kit is recently orphaned.  Again.  Her parents died when she was  younger, and she was lucky to be raised by a loving grandfather.

When he dies, she embarks from Barbados to Connecticut to live with her mother’s sister.  It becomes evident on board The Dolphin that the life to which she is accustomed is very different than the life in Connecticut.  That point is further made obvious by the abrupt way she is treated when she arrives at her aunt’s home.  They live a Puritan life of hard work and simplicity, where there is no place for silk gowns and lace gloves.  Kit goes through spells where she simply can’t take any more.  One day, she escapes to a pond and meets Hannah, an older Quaker woman living there.  Hannah understands Kit in a way nobody else has, and they become friends.  Through a courtship that never should have been and  a sickness that almost takes both cousins and her aunt, Kit finds strength she never knew she had.  When she tries to share some of that strength with Prudence, a young lady in the village, things get much worse.