A review by tabbrower
The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare

4.0

A friend’s childhood favorite and a lovely, beautiful, interesting read, with one (huge) caveat: Kit, the granddaughter of a wealthy Barbados plantation owner, is pro-slavery when the book starts, but that information almost solely functions to further set Kit apart from her new surroundings. While she receives a little bit of backlash from abolition-minded New Englanders a couple of times throughout, which I think is meant to add nuance to our view of Kit and our view of the Puritanical people she doesn’t like (and also, you know, indicate that slavery is bad), it feels wrong to have that be relegated to a secondary plot in the first place. Still, I waited to see Kit, compassionate and reasonable in most ways, recognize that she was wrong and repent deeply.  And astonishingly, she just never does. The entire topic is just…dropped. We just never see Kit accept that slavery is evil, and that’s, uh, very bad.
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