Witches' Children [Paperback]

Patricia Clapp (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 1987

During the winter of 1692, when the young girls of Salem suddenly find themselves subject to fits of screaming and strange visions, some believe that they have seen the devil and are the victims of witches.

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Puffin (October 1, 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140324070
• ISBN-13: 978-0140324075
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #968,817 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book was really good and I enjoyed it., March 4, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Witches' Children: A Story of Salem (Library Binding)

During a long winter, one after another of ten young girls began having visions seeing the Devil and thrashing about in wild outbursts and conclusions. After a cursory investigation, the town elders quickly concluded that these poor possed children were under a dreaded evil influence..... Witches The narrator of this often frightening tale, based on historical facts. Mary Warren, a bound girl and one of the ten possed. In her vivid account, she tells of the semindly uncontrollable sequence of events, of which she was part, leading to the now-infamous Salem with-hunt and trials of 1692 andof how fear and imagination run wild brout an elding no one ever expected.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "A prize to those who read it", January 25, 2000

By 

Shriya Palekar (New York City.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Witches' Children (Paperback)

This is a beautiful book. it's written in the narrative form of a young girl in Salem, who finds the courage to stop helping in the accusation of inocent women as witches. If you are looking to research the Witch trials of 1692, or just to enjoy a touching book, this is a book you have to read.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars NO BLACK CATS NEED APPLY, October 18, 1998

By 

Plume45 "kitka12345" (Westchester, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Witches' Children (Paperback)

This is one sobering but highly readable book based on historical fact, which makes it all the more shocking. Seven sources are listed in the Bibliography, but don't think that you will be bored! There is nothing stuffy about mass hysteria; nothing dry in the shedding of innocent blood. The era of the Salem Witch Trials and juvenile power is a black blot on New England's spiritual copybook, yet one which we must not ignore. We keep asking ourselves; how could this farce-turned-tragedy happen; how could things be carried so far? Where were men of reason, women of compassion? Unfortunately for the victims, the science of Psychology had not yet been invented. Alas, the Devil's minions stalked and frolicked unchecked for many months in modest Salem Village.

Narrated by Mary Warren, bound girl in the Proctor household, and herself one of the ten "poor, afflicted girls," this story describes in chronological order the incredible chain of events and passionate emotions which swept through this unassuming community during the winter of 1692/93. This tale of horror and psychological strangulation began as a harmless game of fortune telling by Tituba, the slave from Barbados. Egged on despite her better judgment, Tituba obeyed the minister's manipulative niece and sickly daughter. This contagion of senselss hate and spite spat its venom through the sleepy village, reaching a crescendo of horror which resulted in the death of many innocent souls and the destruction of their shocked families. No one was safe from the dramatic accusations of the "tormented" girls, who suddenly achieved social power and status beyond mere Salem.

Just what or who unleashed the forces of evil that overlong winter? Surely the accused were not really witches--Tituba was the only person who might have wielded Black Power--but beware the fruit of stifled femininity, of idle minds if not hands. Do we blame the bored and socially-imprisoned girls, town gossips looking for slander, group hysteria, the over-active imagination of pre-teens, and one possibly real case of epilepsy? All these factors combined to distort facts and contort morality into a hate campaign, thirsting for human blood. Not even the minister's home was safe; in fact this foul contagion festered and throve there, shifting to Ingersoll's tavern, thence to the courtroom and ultimately the gallows. Dost see Goody So and So perched like an owl on the rafters? Help--she is pinching and clawing me! And the ravings of these young girls were taken seriously! The truth could not be heard; only lies were believed. Confess to witchcraft and thou shalt be pardoned.

A chilling tale of puerile illusion and adult mania, with only the swift-paced dialogue fictionalized (based on journals and trial records). Clapp's style is fluid and hooks you in from the start. Read it for Colonial history, or for Psychology or just for Halloween, but don't miss this literary cauldron of deceit and mass brainwashing. At least we can be take comfort in the secure knowledge that such horrors could never be repeated in this century of enlightenment...can't we ...?