The Salem Witch Trials: An Unsolved Mystery from History - Hardcover

Yolen, Jane; Stemple, Heidi E. Y.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0689846207 ISBN 13: 9780689846205

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2004

Synopsis

In this spooky book from the nonfiction An Unsolved Mystery from History picture book series, tragedy strikes Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692 as the community is torn apart by accusations of witchcraft.

When a group of girls came down with a horrible, mysterious bout of illness, they pointed the finger at people in their community they claimed were witches. Soon, the whole town was convinced they were in danger from supernatural forces. Today, we have details about the accusations, trials, and those who lost their lives, but the question remains: What caused the mass hysteria?

Become a detective, study the clues, and see if you can help solve this chilling mystery from history!

About this title

About the Author

Jane Yolen is an award-winning author who has written more than 380 books for children, including the bestseller How Do Dinosaurs Say Good Night? and the 1988 Caldecott Medal winner Owl Moon. She is known for her beautiful poetry, picture books, fairy tales, novels, and nonfiction, and has even been called “the Hans Christian Andersen of America” (Newsweek). She lives in Hatfield, Massachusetts. Visit her at JaneYolen.com.

Heidi Elisabet Yolen Stemple is the author of more than thirty books for children, some of which she coauthored with her mother, Jane Yolen, including Not All Princesses Dress in Pink. Heidi lives in Hatfield, Massachusetts.

Roger Roth has been an illustrator since graduating with a BFA from Pratt Institute in 1980. Roger’s work appears regularly in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, and other publications. His work is also used by advertising companies for national and international campaigns. Roger has illustrated more than fifteen children’s books (two of which he also wrote). He also serves as senior lecturer at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia and is a frequent presenter at area schools.

Reviews

Grade 3-6–Yolen and her daughter outline the basic events that gripped this community while boxed text, drawn to look like pages from an investigator's notebook, add context. Smaller sidebars define some of the terms used. The book concludes with a presentation of some of the extant theories of what caused the girls' hysteria and the reactions of the other townspeople, with questions for readers, based on the text, that may support or attack each theory. Roth's graphite-and-watercolor illustrations, done in somber tones, convey the bleakness of the Colonial winter and the drama of the unfolding events. There have been a number of books for this audience covering the Salem witch trials, Edward Dolan's (Benchmark, 2001), Tamra Orr's (Blackbirch, 2004), and Stephen Currie's (KidHaven, 2002), among them. While these titles cover the facts more completely and may be better suited for reports, the investigative approach used here gives a different perspective and encourages readers to evaluate the evidence and draw their own conclusions.–Elaine Fort Weischedel, Millbury Public Library, MA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Gr. 4-6. Yolen and her daughter offer another entry in the Unsolved Mystery from History series. Once again, a girl whose father is a detective introduces events. She collects information about the "case" and at the end offers various scenarios about what happened in Salem, asking readers to come up with their own conclusions. The format seems more streamlined than in previous books, but each spread still features a text box and another box in the shape of a notebook, which contains the girl's musings. There are also several colored boxes with word definitions, which could have been incorporated into the text; simpler words could also have been used. On the plus side, this effectively introduces an intriguing subject, and the mystery of what really happened is more than enough to whet kids' appetites. Roth's illustrations serve the text very well; big, bold, and reminiscent of the work of Trina Schart Hyman, they fit the oversize picture-book format and move things along. A bibliography and list of Web sites will lead readers to more. Ilene Cooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0689846207
• ISBN 13: 9780689846205
• Binding: Hardcover
• Illustrator: Roth Roger
• Number of pages: 32