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Witch Child | 
 enlarge | Author: Celia Rees
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Category: Book
List Price: £6.99
Buy Used: £0.01
You Save: £6.98 (100%)
New (42) Used (237) Collectible (1) from £0.01
Rating:  59 reviews
Sales Rank: 20967
Media: Paperback
Edition: New edition
Pages: 240
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.1 x 0.8
ISBN: 0747550093
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN: 9780747550099
ASIN: 0747550093
Publication Date: June 4, 2000
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.co.uk Review
Age 10 and over She was locked in the keep for more than a week. First they walked 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... Mary's grandmother is executed for witchcraft, and Mary is forced to leave her home to avoid the same fate. At first she flees to the English countryside, but when the atmosphere of superstition and suspicion becomes all consuming she leaves on a boat for America in the hope that she can start over and forget her past. But during the journey, she realises that the past is not so easy to escape. Witch Child is a complex, absorbing novel, told in the form of pages from a journal found loosely sewn into an old quilt many years later. From the moment the story begins, the tension is tangible, and the reader is drawn into a world of mistrust and uncertainty that shakes to the core. All this is cleverly conveyed through the eyes of Mary, whose first sense of wide-eyed wonder gradually develops a mature understanding of her situation, drawing the reader in to a dark and dangerous world where the tiniest slip could mean death. Celia Rees, always a fine writer, tackles her subject with serious and sensitive aplomb, bringing together a sense of history with an extraordinarily powerful and thrilling story that is unforgettable.--Susan Harrison
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| Customer Reviews: Read 54 more reviews...
 Captivating well-written story of a young witch in the seventeenth century December 19, 2007
SB (Warwickshire, UK)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
Celia Rees writes beautifully here, literally grabbing you from the first page and dragging you into Mary's story from 1659.
Mary is a young girl growing into womanhood fearful of persecution. The story opens immediately with the witch trial of the woman she calls "grandmother" who has brought her up from when she was a baby. To avoid the same fate, Mary finds herself being shipped off to America, in disguise with a group of migrating Puritans. However, even in America, Mary finds it hard to disguise some of her peculiarities however hard she tries, and the strongly Puritan community she lives amongst needs to find a scapegoat...
It's a great fictionalised introduction to the persecution of women in the witch-hunt trials of the seventeenth century. Written as a journal fragment from Mary's own account of her travels, it's really easy to engage with the story and I didn't want the book to end when it did. Mary's story breaks off to leave us guessing about her ultimate fate.
It's a great story and I can recommend it for ages 11+
 easy read October 28, 2007
Roman Clodia (London)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is aimed at teenagers so it's perhaps unfair of adult readers to rate it, but I did feel that it starts up so many potential threads which it just doesn't follow through so ultimately I found this an unsatisfactory read.
The characters are quite stereotypical and lack any depth - we never really understand why the puritan reverend is the way he is: genuine religious obsession, power, repressed sexuality? Also the switch from bitchy teenage girls to 'witches' doesn't really ring true...
Mary herself, the first person narrator, is guite an unclear character: she describes herself as a witch in line two of the book, but what does that mean, and what does it mean to her? None of this is ever made clear which leaves the narrative quite unstable.
Having said all that, this is probably an interesting read for younger girls, and the historical setting (late 16th century) might be one that teenagers know little about. I read this in a couple of hours but hated the ending that just hangs there waiting for the reader to buy the sequal. So, overall, not a bad book but an unsatisfying one.
 witch child October 1, 2007
renna brale (london,england)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
i had to read ths book for year 9 andi thought it was fantastic- because it was based on true tale you can imagine every single thing. ou can get drawn into the book righ from the start and it never bores you.
WITCH CHILD September 12, 2007
JANET STREET POORTER (USA)
THIS BOOK IS AMAZING WE ARE READING IT AT COLLEGE IT IS ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS YOU'LL EVER READ
AND FROM 0.01 YOU CERTAINLY CAN NOT GRUMBLE SO I'D SAY GIVE IT A TRY AND YOU COULD MAYBE RECOMMOMEND THIS BOOK TO OTHER PEOPLE THATS IF YOU CAN GET YOUR NOSE OUT OF THE BOOK
well worth reading April 12, 2007
Zobiana (London)
I found Witch Child and Sorceress to be great reads despite the fact they are written for teens and I am an adult. I enjoyed the blend of historical context and spiritual overtones and found that Celia's descriptive writing transported me back to those times and encouraged my imagination to fill in the blanks. Very enjoyable for a bedtime read!
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