num_pages: 144
description: Tackling the same twisted subject as Stacy Schiff's much-lauded book The Witches: Salem 1692 this Sibert Honor book for young readers features unique scratchboard illustrations chilling primary source material and powerful narrative to tell the true tale. In the little colonial town of Salem Village Massachusetts two girls began to twitch mumble and contort their bodies into strange shapes. The doctor tried every remedy but nothing cured the young Puritans. He grimly announced the dire diagnosis: the girls were bewitched! And then the accusations began. The riveting true story of the victims accused witches crooked officials and mass hysteria that turned a mysterious illness affecting two children into a witch hunt that took over a dozen peoples lives and ruined hundreds more unfolds in chilling detail in this young adult book by award-winning author and illustrator Rosalyn Schanzer. With a powerful narrative chilling primary source accounts a design evoking the period and stylized black-white-and-red scratchboard illustrations of young girls having wild fits in the courtroom witches flying overhead and the Devil and his servants terrorizing the Puritans this book will rivet young readers with novelistic power. Taught in middle and high schools around the U.S. the 17th-century saga remains hauntingly resonant as people struggle even today with the urgent need to find someone to blame for their misfortunes. In addition to the Sibert Honor Witches! has been honored by the Society of Illustrators with their Original Art Award Gold Medal has been named a Notable book by both the American Library Association and the National Council for the Social Studies and was chosen one ofSchool Library Journal's 100 Magnificent Children's Books and one of Chicago Public Library's Best of the Best Children's Books. 
language: English
title: Witches: The Absolutely True Tale of Disaster in Salem
publisher: National Geographic Kids