I Walk in Dread: The Diary of Deliverance Trembley, Witness to the Salem Witch Trials

This is one of the books in the Dear America series. This particular book is a fictional diary kept by a girl who lived during the time of the Salem Witch trials.

One of the strong points of the book is that it shows a lot of the daily lives of the people at that time; their living conditions, the types of social interactions, the dangers they lived under and so on. That part alone would make this a good book, but in addition we have a look at the Salem Witch trials not from the viewpoint of some scholar writing a musty tome but from a person who has done considerable research and writes in a manner which brings that entire time to life.

For anyone not familiar with the events, the Salem Witch trials were a series of trials held of people who were accused of being witches. These occurred in Salem, of course, but similar trials happened in many other countries, particularly in Europe and in England. It is estmated that from around 25,000 (on the absolute low side) arorund 9 million (on the high side people ) people were executed for being witches. Some towns in Europe lost almost their entire population of women.

Around 85% of the people accused and killed were women, the other 15% men, although many cats were also killed since they were assumed to be agents of the women. This is one reason for the spread of the Bubonic Plague which killed at least a quarter of all the people in Europe; the killing of so many cats allowed rats (which carried the fleas that carried the disease) to overpopulate, helping to spread the disease.

The system of "justice" was also very different than it is now, and this book shows how simple accusations would usually result in almost automatic conviction and eventual execution. The women were generally hanged (and in many places burned alive tied to a stake in the ground), and one man in the U.S. trials was killed by piling rocks on top of him until he was crushed to death.

This book also shows how people can start off believing what everyone else does but then, with some observation and careful thinking, realize that the others might actually be doing something which is not right.

Finally, the book also provides a Historical Note section which provides information, pictures and drawings that help a person understand better what is going on in the book.

This is an excellent book in an excellent series of books.

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