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1659 and 1660. Mary lives with her grandmother in a village in Warwickshire –– a village which suffers a visit from a so-called witchfinder. Mary has to endure seeing her beloved grandmother hanged as a witch. Mary could have been in danger herself too but she is snatched to safety by the mother she had never known. Her mother arranges for her to sail to America with a band of Puritans.
But Mary is no safer in the new colony. Early on people suspect that she is different and Mary’s own actions help to convince them that they are right. Mary is always writing in her journal but writing is not a fit occupation for a young lady. Even worse Mary likes to wander alone in the forest collecting herbs. She makes enemies of a group of girls and it is only a matter of time before she too is denounced.
But despite the theme of witchcraft this is far more a story of how the settlers carved out a new home for themselves. The sea voyage is carefully described with details of the cramped living conditions, the danger from storms and icebergs and the wonders of such new creatures as whales. Then, after the safe landing in America at the port of Salem, we follow the settlers as they cross the forest to their new town of Beulah. We see them building their new houses of wood from the forest, learn of the difficulties of coping within the limitations of primitive environment and see how they survive the harsh winter. Above all we share Mary’s experience of the harsh and superstitious Puritan ministers.
Another important strand is Mary’s secret friendship with the Indian boy Jaybird. Mary’s growing respect for the native Indians is in sharp contrast to the Puritan dismissal of the Indians as ‘heathens.’
Told in the first person by Mary in the form of a diary –– a diary which is found hundreds of years later sewn into an old quilt.
Young adult.