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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 133.43097445
EAN num: 9781416903154
ISBN number: 1416903151
Label: Simon Pulse
Manufacturer: Simon Pulse
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 288
Printing Date: August 09, 2005
Publishing house: Simon Pulse
Age index: Young Adult
Sale Popularity Level: 146469
Studio: Simon Pulse
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
Salem, Massachusetts, 1692. In a plain meetinghouse a woman stands before her judges. The accusers, girls and young women, are fervent and overexcited. The accused is a poor, unpopular woman who had her very first child before she was married. As the trial proceeds the girls begin to wail, tear their clothing, and scream that the woman is hurting them. Some of them expose wounds to the horrified onlookers, holding out the pins that have stabbed them -- pins that appeared as if by magic. Are they acting or are they really tormented by an unseen evil? Whatever the cause, the nightmare has begun: The witch trials will eventually claim twenty-five lives, shatter the community, and forever shape the American social conscience.
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Rated by buyers 
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I came across this book when I was given the assignment of writing a paper on the Salem Witch Trials. I really didn't know too much about it and I figured like most books that I used for other research papers, despite how interesting the topic, it'd be boring. Well this book had the unique quality of being both a textbook as well as being interesting enough to almost be a story.
The way this book was written was extremely well done. It gives you the facts and information you need while reading as if it were a story for pleasurable reading. It also strangely, although interestingly,compares the events to some fairy tales which further enhanced the understanding of some of the situations or perspectives of some of the characters.
The only minor downside is that because it does have the quality of both textbook and narratives, there are certain parts that seem to lean too close to the textbook side and thus are very dull.
Still, it's a very good book for both pleasure reading/interests or for research papers. I'd recommend it for high school and even college students since the information is accurate and will no doubt be useful. It's also an easy read and, if you're really into it, could probably finish it in a few days.
If you enjoyed the narrative part of this book I'd highly recommend reading the play The Crucible. It's all about the events that transpired in this book.
Rated by buyers 
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The subject matter was what had me buying this book, but it was hard to stay intrigued with the text-book language used. The pictures were great and it had a lot of useful information, but this is a book I would only use for research. Not for the light reader!
Rated by buyers 
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The book was very dull it had better use as a textbook than a pleasure-reading book. Trying to connect to the characters would be like trying to teach an ameba to roll over, no character was given enough screen-time, or page-time to be correct, to get to know them. The book started telling how Elizabeth's story, which influenced modern Cinderella stories, then you suddenly are reading about how many people believe in witches today, after that about how Marther helped a family in need, ect... After awhile you begun to think, "Who is the main character!!!!' I would suggest this book to no one it is the worst book I have ever read. All in all if you want to read a good book don't read this one.
Rated by buyers -
If you want to only read one book on the Salem Witch Trials this is the book for you. the book is addressed to teens so its a quick and easy read.
this book is a very factual look at a very troubbling and mysteriuos time. there are alot of unawnsered questions that many historians guess at or write about their own personal judgements. the cool thing about this book is that it presents the facts and the theories in a questioning way saying this could have happened this way, etc. it leaves room for the reader to decided for themselves what they want to believe. an excellent book on the subject.
Rated by buyers 
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The author's note to the reader gave me high expectations. It talked about all the fallacies I might have read and how this book was going to tell me things I had never learned and solve the oft-referred to "mysteries of Salem." I knew quite a bit about the Salem witch trials, so I was curious as to what Aronson could tell me. I was slightly irked at his misuse of the word "occult," however; he made it sound like it is evil, satanic practices, which it most certainly is not. In fact, an occult practitioner from this era would not appear in any books due to the fact that this is when they named themselves the occult. Pagans during the European and Salem witch crazes went into hiding, their religions becoming underground, or "occult." Furthermore, Aronson's language is extremely flowery and dramatic, making it difficult to separate his beliefs in relationship to the events at Salem from what contemporaries believed. His use of rhetorical questions in the reader's note is also over-done and unnecessary.
Then comes the introduction. It is an actual account of a particular trial, that of Goody Carrier. I enjoyed the exchanges, but the author's description between each set was over-done. First, it was in italics. Because this didn't seem melodramatic enough, Aronson described the scene in ridiculous ways: "They are so tormented, it is as if their very bones are being pulled out of their sockets." If he had to use literary devices, he could have been a little more creative. Neither did the descriptions reveal the promised truths; they described the same events I have always read about: accusers having violent fits, the accused denying the claims, then more violent fits. Then does it continue with rhetorical questions already posed, such as, "Why would young people join together to attack someone they hardly, if ever, met, knowing their wails and visions and fits would lead to her death?" If I had wanted this presentation of pseudo-information, I could have read one of the many, far more enjoyable historical fictions on the subject.
The latter half of the introduction does bring in some valid, unique points, however. Aronson compares situations that led to with accusations to popular fairy tales. The story of Sleeping Beauty, he explains, could have really been about an old woman who helped a couple have a child, but because of her appearance, her age, or the means she used to help the couple achieve fertility, she was excluded from the subsequent festivities and as a result got angry. Therefore, readers are siding with the wrong people, with those wrongly accusing others of witchcraft. This is an interesting theory, but given that Sleeping Beauty was written in Germany by two young men after the Enlightenment, it holds little water. Indeed, the moral of the original story is about having to wait over a hundred years for a girl to find the perfect man; the evil old woman was only mentioned when she cursed the child at her christening. Aronson's description of Sleeping Beauty is closer to the Disney version than the Grimm brothers'; therefore, it is nearly irrelevant. Even worse, instead of only stating his theory once, he repeats it several times in different wording. And again does he use melodramatic rhetorical questions, the worst being, "And who better to help bitter people to get revenge than Satan, the Prince of Darkness, the angel whose own envy of God made him try to subvert all creation?" This very vivid description of Satan has little to do with an apparently nasty old woman getting her due.
Then does he describe an event similar to another Grimm tale, that of Cinderella. The event took place in 1671 - another weak point that it had anything to do with the actual story of Cinderella because it wasn't published until at least 1812 in Germany. Worse, the event's description starts out with a clich?: "It might well have been one of those gray, cold New England days when the chill gets into your bones and layers of homespun do little to keep it out. The sky on those days is filled with clouds, and the sun's light is pale and thin. It is a cruel tease, promising warmth it never delivers. At any moment a wind gust can bully you, telling you that coldness is in charge here, winter is the rule." Entirely beside the point. Then the actual story is of a girl under no kind of cruel guardianship who does all the chores because she is grateful that someone would take her in after her parents' deaths. An evil voice offers to do some of her chores. Here, for the very first of many instances do we hear of "the Devil's grey book" that witches "signed with blood". And somehow, this is supposed to be like a fairy godmother dressing up a downtrodden girl to go to a ball.
An interesting fact, however, was that most of the judges ruled against the accusers, and because England prohibited torture to obtain evidence, so did New England. Also were the traditional tests to prove ... Read More
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