Ordinarily a book like this would start with an Introduction that would sum up everything that happened lickety split. You see the “crime”, the characters, and the endless strange courtroom scenes (Note: Teacher’s wishing to spice up their history presentations should definitely make Law & Order-like videos of the Witch Trials).Īnd Schanzer’s choice of presentation is fascinating. It’s like watching an episode of Law & Order. The author lays out her book chronologically. And I didn’t even know how much I didn’t know until I started reading Schanzer’s book. Here I am, thirty-three years of age with a Masters degree to my name and if you had asked me to recount exactly what happened during the Salem Witch Trials I’d have been hard pressed to come up with anything I didn’t just learn from Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. Notes, a Bibliography, an Index, and a Note From the Author explaining how she abridged, updated, and clarified some of the original texts follow at the end. Rosalyn Schanzer tells it like it is, recounting many of the details, giving information on what happened to all the players when the dust settled and things got back to normal.

What they didn’t know was that the afflicted girls would be joined by fellow accusers and launch the town, and even parts of the state, into a series of witch trials the land of America had never seen before.

And why not? This was Salem, Massachusetts where the Puritan populace knew anything was possible. When 9-year-old Betty Parris and 11-year-old Abigail Williams began to twist and turn in the home of the Reverend Samuel Parris there was only one possible reason for it: witchcraft. Then I’d pull out my secret weapon: Witches! The Absolutely True Tale of Disaster in Salem. And not any of those Childhood of Famous Americans books either, missy thang. I mean like straight up facts about a moment in history. Nonfiction? You mean like the latest edition of The Guinness Book of World Records, right? Nope. “So what,” I might say, “would it take to get you to read nonfiction?” Even from a distance of twenty-three years I can feel the resistance to such a notion. From there we’d give praise to good Apple paperbacks like The Girl With the Silver Eyes or pretty much anything with a ghost in it (does anyone even remember Ghost Cat?) but eventually I’d have to start pushing myself. We’d chat about the improvements that will come to fashion someday (I think 10-year-old me would really appreciate knowing that 1988 was America’s low point), the delight to be found in School House Rock and eventually I’d turn the conversation to books.

Sometimes I wish I could sit down with my 10-year-old self and have a conversation. Witches! The Absolutely True Tale of Disaster in Salem

Rosalyn schanzer books