Celia Rees’ “Witch Child” is a superb novel. This guide provides materials to support your understanding of character, plot and setting. While emphasis is placed on the promotion and development of independent reading, there are lots of comprehension questions and writing tasks which will help you reflect on your own reading strategies and also develop new ways of approaching the text.

When Mary sees her grandmother accused of witchcraft and hanged 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.

The protagonist 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 faces 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.

Celia Rees’ “Witch Child” is set in the middle of the 1600s, a time of terrible political and religious turmoil, so some understanding of the context behind the story will enable you to engage more closely with the narrative. These questions are a good starting point for your research.

Mary and the Puritans have arrived in Salem, but there is uncertainty in this New World. The tasks and exercises will help you engage with what happens in this section of the novel. There is also an opportunity to practice using quotations and a chance to test your own creative writing skills.

Mary and the Puritans travel through the dark forest in the hope of finding their “city on the hill”. The comprehension exercises will help you engage with what happens next this section of the novel, including the writers use of imagery.