Culture Shock

In Elizabeth George Speare's The Witch of Blackbird Pond Kit travels by boat from the only home she's ever known in Barbados to Puritan Connecticut to live with her aunt and uncle after the death of her grandfather.  Needless to say she experiences some pretty serious culture shock.  I can sympathize a little with Kit.  As I have mentioned before I spent a semester of college studying abroad in Greece.  The language was different, the alphabet was different, the people looked different (I have very pale skin, which I have pretty much come to terms with until I got to Greece and once again felt pasty), even when they did speak English it was different.  But I had the luxury of living with other students.  When things got to different I could go back to my apartment and bask in the familiarity of people who spoke my language and had my background.

Kit had no such luxury, and to make her transition even harder she moved in with Puritans.  I'm not sure what you know about Puritans, I've always been fascinated by their society and took a couple of courses in early American History to learn more, but here's the main point: they work hard and they shun vanity.  Kit came from Barbados where she was basically royalty and had all of her work done by slaves.  Life was a little different.  But Kit manages to adjust-even if she remains a very unorthodox Puritan.

Kit builds friendships with her two cousins and spends many a pleasant hour talking with them. Kit grows especially fond of her cousin Mercy, who after a battle with a fever was left permanently weakened. When a man comes to call Kit catches Mercy looking at him and based on that look provides what may be my new favorite description of love. "The flame that had burned in Mercy's eyes had such purity, such complete selflessness that everything Kit had ever known seemed dim in its light.  What it must be to care for someone like that."

This book has something for everyone.  It has drama, mystery, suspense, humor, and of course a love story-three love stories actually.   It also provides a little peak into the life of New England Puritans and some of the tensions leading up to the revolutionary wary.  All in all it's a pretty fantastic book.

Embracing a new culture, aspiring to love purely...that's kids stuff.