I read the book Witch Hunt, by Marc Aronson. Witch Hunt is a Non-Fiction story about the witch trials in old Salem.

Elizabeth Knapp was doing the daily jobs that she does while working for Reverend Samuel Willard. She was currently living in his home as part of the help. Elizabeth came from a troubled family and was working to help earn money. Elizabeth thought of Reverend Willard as a personal savior, because she couldn't look at the father in that way, for he was always getting into trouble with the law. Elizabeth loved working for the Reverend because he took good care of her by giving her good work and a home to come back to. One day, while Elizabeth was going about her chores, she heard a voice speak to her in her mind. Elizabeth could sense an evil presence behind the great booming voice. The voice offered to do one of her chores for her, but Elizabeth replied simply but strongly, “No Thank you”, but later on, Elizabeth realized that that was a mistake. When Elizabeth returned home she found the pile of wood chips that she was supposed to fetch for the fire, was already sitting by the mantle. Elizabeth thought of this as very strange, because she had told the voice she had heard not to fetch the wood chips. Elizabeth wasn't pleased with the result and was forevermore haunted in her sleep by the voice of the controlling one that had gone at fetched the wood chips.This is only one story in the world of spooky mysteries of old Salem. Dating back to 1692 these mysterious things were very common. Many trials had been held because of people testifying that they were being harmed and haunted by a witch. Usually teenagers were the ones making the accusations and usually a group of teenagers all being haunted by the same person. In old Salem, usually the trials were against women, for mostly women were accused of being witches, hardly ever men. Many trials have been held in Salem for witch related reasons, and even throughout the entire book, we still don't have an answer for the reason so many witch trials were held in Salem, and why so many witches were saught out and killed for being held guilty of witchcraft.

Not only in Elizabeth's case, were people haunted and harmed in they're minds, they were haunted and harmed physically. Take a girl named Pheobe Chandler. She was walking and heard a voice in the bushes asking where was she going and what was she doing. Pheobe ran home after that. Later on she went back to finish her chores and heard the same voice say that she will be poisoned in the next two or three days, and she was. Her hand suddenly became swollen and irritated.

Both Elizabeth and Pheobe claimed to be haunted and harmed by the same person, Martha Carrier. Elizabeth and Pheobe took their cases to a trail and Martha was found guilty of witchcraft and was and killed.

Personally, I really liked the way that Marc Aronson wrote the book. I thought his descriptive detail and knowledge of old Salem really made this book great. I think that the topic is very interesting because there is so much information about the witch trials, but this book really sums up everything and really informs about old Salem.

Out of a possible five stars I would rate this book a 4 ½ stars. I liked everything about it and I enjoyed reading it.