The Salem Witch Trials

by Earle Rice Jr.

Discusses the historical setting of the witchcraft trials in colonial Salem, Massachusetts, with background information on the Puritans.

Library Binding

First published June 1, 1996

About the author

Earle Rice Jr. has written more than fifty books for young adults. Mr. Rice served honorably in the U.S. Marine Corps for nine years, including a tour of combat duty as a machine-gun squad leader during the Korean War. He is a member of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, the League of World War I Aviation Historians, the United States Naval Institute, the Air Force Association, and the Disabled American Veterans.

Reviews

[Aundrea O'connor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very informative.

[Makenzie Gorda]

The author's purpose for writing this book was to be informative. He wanted to inform the audience about a period of time in United States history. This period was very dark, sad and gloomy because many people died for something that they did not do. A lot of people died because they were accused of doing witchcraft.
The theme of this book is to never believe everything that you hear. The people in court were told to believe that those people did witchcraft, when they did not do that. They were falsely accused of doing horrible things to people. Everyone believed that they did it so they were killed or put into jail.
The style of this book was a narration. The book explained all of the events that happened during that time period in American history. A lot of the story was in chronological order because it is what happened and the effect of what went on. Many bad things happened and there were not always good outcomes.
I personally liked the book. I liked how it was written and worded. I did not liked that it got boring at times. I would not change a thing about this book. I have never read anything like this but I have seen many shows like this or about this.

[Lana Nickelson · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book I chose to read was The Salem Witch Trials by Earle Rice. It was a really good book and it was extremely informative. This was a non-fiction book but because it was describing the Salem witch trials it felt more like a work of fiction.
I really liked how the book itself was organized, it was put into chapters and then inside of the chapters it had the authors thoughts.It also had documents and court cases spread through out that were related to what the author has been discussing in the text.
I think that this book was written to inform readers about how many innocent people died because a group of girls accused them of witchcraft. I honestly think that the Salem Witch Trials were a dark time in our country's history and if people did not write about it a similar situation could happen again.
Overall I really enjoyed this book, not only was it's topic interesting it was also written in a great and easy to follow way.

[Jonny Gomez · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is trash. Horrendous historical account laden with opinion and emotional appeals and no balancing arguments to even make the opinion pieces justifiable. The very first chapter already presents mistruths and common misconceptions about the trials that can be easily refuted. He makes the argument that Puritans and their beliefs were equivalent to the Nazi party.

It’s real sad that kids in high school are more and more often being exposed to these opinion based historical narratives that are warping their ability to think critically, in favor of thinking emotionally.

This book sucks because it's presentist in it's presuppositions. When it comes to History you need to keep your mouth shut and listen for awhile before you try and extrapolate on complex social issues. Stop using the lens of today to judge the past. That practice is reserved for fools and is a major blind spot in historical writing.

[Astrid Reyes · Rating 5 out of 5]

quite informing