Brain Snacks: Tasty Tidbits of Knowledge
In addition to being a writer, author Elizabeth George Speare also taught high school English in Massachusetts (source).
Many of the characters in The Witch of Blackbird Pond come straight out of history: Governor Andros, for example, and Reverend Gersholm Bulkeley.John Holbrook reads poetry from Anne Bradstreet to the Wood family. Anne Bradstreet was one of American's first female poets.