Duble, Kathleen Benner. (2005). The Sacrifice.

New York: Aladdin Paperbacks.

The book The Sacrifice is about Abigail Faulkner and her family who live in Andover during the late 1600s, when the Salem Witch trials are taking place. Two supposed witches come to Andover from Salem to see who in Andover is a witch, which gets the entire town in a bit of a frenzy, and neighbors accuse neighbors of witchcraft. At first, no body in Abby's family is accused. Then, Abby's aunt, Elizabeth, gets accused of being a witch, and soon after ten-year old Abby and her twelve-year sister, Dorothy, are accused by their former maid, Sarah Phelps. They are taken to the gloomy, dark, smelly prison in Salem where it is full of rats, lice, and tons of other accused witches. While in prison, their mother and Uncle Henry, Aunt Elizabeth's husband, visit them every other day. Eventually Aunt Elizabeth dies due to the harsh, wet conditions which made her develop an awful cough where she would cough up blood. Then, after months spent rotting away in jail, the two Faulkner girls get to have their trial. They had previously made plans with their mother during one of her visits to them. They planned to accuse their mother of witchcraft so they could be let out of jail. Their mom sacrificed herself to save her two daughters, and she was pregnant so she would not be hung, making the plan good. Then the Faulkner family helped to end all of the witchcraft nonsense with the help of the state governor and all the innocent people were saved.
The theme of this book is sacrifice, quite obvious from the title. This is the theme because Abby's mother sacrifices herself because she cannot stand to see her two poor daughters locked up in jail. That is a true act of sacrifice and love.
I would recommend this book to many young people who are interested in the past but like to read fiction books. It is a fast read and easy to understand. It will give you a quick, but interesting, glimpse at what life was like for accused witches during the time. It keeps the reader hooked the entire time by using suspense. I kept reading to find the fate of Abby and Dorothy. Overall, I definitely think this was a very good book.
The genre of this book is historical fiction.
I would rate this book at an eight.