Witch Child

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?

Celia Rees is the author of many novels for teens. WITCH CHILD is her first with Candlewick Press. After reading about seventeenth-century witch persecutions and Native American shamanism, she says, "It occurred to me that the beliefs and skills that would have condemned a woman to death in one society would have been revered in another. That got me thinking, what if there was a girl who could move between these two worlds?... Mary came into my head and WITCH CHILD began."