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Wicked Girls

A Novel of the Salem Witch Trials
Wicked Girls: A Novel of the Salem Witch Trials by Stephanie Hemphill Middle School, High School Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins 408 pp. 6/10 978-0-06-185328-9 $16.99 Library ed. 978-0-06-185329-6 $17.89 g
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"Sure as meat makes a pie, / the villagers be certain / that Satan is among them. / The brisk spoons of girls / ladle fear / into everyone's bowls." In this forceful verse novel, Hemphill (Your Own, Sylvia, rev. 3/07) gives voice to those who writhed, twitched, and shrieked their way to power during the Salem witch trials. Her plausible interpretation of events is a Puritan Mean Girls, with peer pressure and group dynamics driving the young accusers to maintain their histrionic charade, even after they realize their actions' fatal consequences. The poems shift among the perspectives of three girls—Ann Putnam, Mercy Lewis, and Margaret Walcott—and Hemphill succeeds in carving out distinct personalities and motivations for each. Chillingly, she shows how the girls manipulate—and are manipulated by—their elders. For instance, twelve-year-old Ann's vindictive mother not-so-subtly mentions names of villagers she dislikes to her daughter, suggesting they may be the witches tormenting her. And Ann soon follows her mother's example: "My mother will have to learn / to do as I wish, or perhaps / I shall call her a witch?" An author's note elaborates both on the history of the trials and on the theory, adopted by Hemphill, that the girls knew that the "witches" swinging from the gallows were innocent and the faces they saw in the mirror were guilty. CHRISTINE M. HEPPERMANN
Gr 9 Up—Wicked Girls weaves a fresh interpretation of the events put forth in Arthur Miller's The Crucible and revisited more recently by Katherine Howe in The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane (Voice, 2009). Mercy Lewis, Ann Putnam, and Mary Walcott (in this story, called "Margaret") point their fingers, lift their eyes, and cry "witch" once again. Elderly Goody Nurse appears, Mary Warren (here called "Ruth") recants her accusations, John Proctor is accused and hanged, and Giles Corey is pressed to death. The verse format is fresh and engaging, distilling the actions of the seven accusing girls into riveting narrative. In Hemphill's village of Salem, Mercy Lewis (age 17) and Ann Putnam, Jr. (age 12) vie for control of the group of girls who quickly become swept up by their celebrity. Their accusations become self-serving: the merest look or shudder from one of the "afflicted" means the offender (an inattentive lover; someone who has done a parent wrong) risks being branded a witch or wizard. Eventually, the group fractures and the girls turn on each other, leading to cruelty and death. In the author's note, Hemphill outlines the historical background, with source notes for further reading. As in Your Own, Sylvia (Knopf, 2007), she bases her book in fact, but acknowledges that "certain names and accounts have been changed, amended and altered" in the construction of her novel. Teens may need some encouragement to pick up this book, but it deserves a place in most high school collections.—Maggie Knapp, Trinity Valley School, Fort Worth, TX
In this forceful verse novel, Hemphill gives voice to those who writhed, twitched, and shrieked their way to power during the Salem witch trials. Her plausible interpretation of events is a Puritan Mean Girls, with peer pressure driving the accusers. The poems shift among the perspectives of three girls, and Hemphill succeeds in carving out distinct personalities and motivations for each.

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