Tituba

After researching historical fiction books for my genre presentation, I found the true story of Tituba (By: William Miller), the slave that was accused of witchcraft during the Salem which trials in 1962. The first thing that crossed my mind, though, was how the author was going to peruse the ending, where Tituba gets hanged.

The cover of the book reads in large orange letters “Tituba” with a picture of an a black women sewing a blanket on a chair. The dark background with the bright orange plants kind of make of creates a mysterious mood and grabs anyone’s attention.

Thankfully, the author doesn’t include the end of the story where Tituba gets hanged. Instead, she makes an alternative ending (I don’t want to give it away!) where everyone turns out happy. I believe this is a reason why the historical fiction genre is so difficult at times-countless events in our past don’t have the best endings-how do we explain these to the young children were reading to?