Hey all, Sam here.
My review list just keeps getting longer, but I guess that’s what happens when you’re reading a lot and just not blogging a lot, so it’s entirely my fault. I’ll just need to keep trying to set aside some time for myself to prep up a handful of posts, and then a little more time to finish writing them and schedule them for publication. It’ll just take a little time for that to become a habit again.
Anyway, today’s review is for a historical graphic novel that was released at the beginning of June. I read it last week and am trying to get back into writing my book review posts more regularly again, so here I am with this today. If I can keep going and get the other prepped posts finished, then I have at least three or four more posts ready for the next handful of days, so we’ll see if I can actually stick to my plans this time around.
Let’s get started with the review.
A gripping tale of paranoia at its worst, An Outbreak of Witchcraft visually imagines the haunting details of the Salem witch trials in this bewitching narrative nonfiction graphic novel.
From 1692 to 1693, fear reigned in the small village of Salem, Massachusetts. The night Abigail Williams and Betty Paris first accused their servant of witchcraft was only the beginning.
Several more accusations would follow suit, sparking a widespread panic that consumed Salem in one of the longest cases of witch trials in America, where more than twenty innocent lives were lost, and mistrust ran amok.
The community was in ruins, from the afflicted who fanned the flames of superstition to the judges who used their power unjustly and the accused who were falsely charged and hanged in consequence. In the absence of due process and with hysteria abounding, no one in Salem was safe.
Journey into how it all began in this arresting, true-to-life look at how lies became facts, friends turned to foes, and loved ones turned to enemies.
My Thoughts
Rating: 4 stars
Did I request this because I’ve always had an eerie fascination with the witch trials of the world? Why yes I did. I don’t know when this became a topic of interest to me, but it was either junior high or high school, but I do remember being assigned a project in World History during my second year of high school and declaring that I was going to do my paper on the witch trials…only to have my teacher tell me that I needed to pick a world topic, and the Salem Witch Trials wouldn’t qualify. Cue up me retorting with the fact that there were more witch trials than just what occurred in Salem, and I was only planning a few paragraphs on Salem after covering the events in other regions.
This graphic novel runs us through the events of the Salem Witch Trials, and has a few pages of just text, giving some of the basics of what happened and who was involved and other details that might be a little more difficult to fit into panel-ed storytelling. Then we have a majority of the book split up into the various panels like one would expect from a comic or graphic novel, which gives a more narrative and visual depiction of the events.
So we get to see those within Salem Village having fits and accusing neighbors. We get to witness the trials and some of the sermons and meetings. It allows us to view these historical events as if we were watching something more like a movie or TV mini series. Instead of just facts and figures and discussions, the information is given as if telling a story.
Honestly, this is still just such a mind-boggling time in the history of the world, thinking to all the hysteria and the wild accusations, leading to all the pain and fear and trauma and death. It was a time of neighbor turning against neighbor. What we see in the graphic novel is pretty much all of the accusers saying the exact same things as proof of the wrongdoing of the accused. It was basically always the same specters and visions with practically no deviation.
Obviously there’s no way to know exactly what was going on in these people’s minds and hearts during this, but from the outside perspective of someone living centuries later, you can see how one person makes a statement or an accusation and then others pick up on specific phrases and just begin repeating and reciting them over and over, using them as truth and gospel against anyone they might not like or believe to be different.
While this read VERY quickly, because it is a graphic novel and only a couple hundred pages, thinking about the Salem Witch Trials is something that lingers because it is so terrible and troubling.
Well, that is all from me for today. Thank you so much for stopping by, and I’ll be back soon with more geeky content.
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