Mary Newbury has lived her whole life in a village, with her grandmother, never knowing who her parents were. That is, till one day the villagers accused her grandmother of being a witch and killed her. Now Mary has to run away to save herself from sharing the fate of her grandmother. She must cross the ocean to an unknown land along with a band of puritans.

The book is an amazing account of the life of the seventeenth century settlers who came from England to settle in America. Celia Rees has done her research, and it shows. Witch Child gives us a detailed description of the lives the of the new Englanders of those days. It tells us of the hardships they had to go through. Crossing an ocean, and settling in a new land, isolated from civilization, surrounded by forests, natives and wild animals. The life of the puritans of those days were clouded by their beliefs and they lived in constant fear of witches and, in the case of the settlers, natives. Crossing the sea in those days was no small feat. They had to fight diseases, especially scurvy; and lived in fear of storms. There weren't proper doctors in those days, and most died on the journey itself.

The story of Mary Newbury is a touching one, showing how she had to cross the ocean, fight disease, make new friends among the setters. It also tells us how on reaching America, they had face the hardships of settling down on a new land.

I absolutely loved this book, I can't wait to get my hands on the sequel