Witch Child [Paperback]

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 --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

`As psychologically acute account of moral panic as you could hope to read and a fine weapon with which to arm any child in the battle against all its modern forms'
--Guardian

'An exciting well-told tale'

'The sort of historical novel eleven and twelve-year-olds will gobble up at a sitting'

"This is a powerful, absorbing and unusual novel" - "The Bookseller". "The sort of historial novel eleven and twelve year olds will gobble up at a sitting" - Nina Bawden. When Mary sees her grandmother accused of witchcraft and hung for the crime, she is silently hurried to safety by an unknown woman. The woman gives her tools to keep the record of her days - paper and ink. Mary is taken to a boat in Plymouth and from there sails to the New World where she hopes to make a new life among the pilgrims. But old superstitions die hard and soon Mary finds that she, like her grandmother, is the victim of ignorance and stupidity and once more she finds herself having to make important choices to ensure her survival. With a vividly evoked environment and characters skilfully and patiently drawn this is a powerful literary achievement by Celia Rees, that is utterly engrossing from start to finish.

'Witch Child' was incredibly well received in hardback because it was one of the most original, epic and compelling tales told in the last decade.

Celia Rees is a high profile writer who has found a new and exciting voice in this, her latest book. She has written several other books for children and young adults and this is the first for Bloomsbury. Celia's recent Truth or Dare published by Macmillan has been receiving fantastic reviews. She lives in Leamington Spa.