User Reviews

This episode is one of the first season on the 3-disk DVD set "Tales from Avonlea". Sarah was supposed to be 10, but young actress Sarah Polley looks more like 8. It is remarkable that a series would be built around such a young actress, but it works because she is so good and so believable.

The episode is built around the annual spelling bee, and it is being held at Avonlea. Hettie will be officiating. So during normal class period she spends some time practicing with the students. One boy, Sarah's cousin, in particular always messes up, and unforgiving Hettie makes him wear the dunce cap and sit facing the wall. Ashamed of his performance he "takes the long way home" through the winter woods, gets lost, and is found by the mysterious neighbor lady that most call a witch. But she takes the boy in, feeds him, and gives him a "magic crystal" (an ordinary stone) which she tells him will enable him to spell any word in the world correctly. She sends him home the next morning.

After everything that happened, the people around Avonlea looked at the lady in a new light, and she was not called a witch anymore, or maybe, a good witch!