Weekly Reader: Six Women of Salem: The Untold Story of the Accused and Their Accusers in the Salem Witch Trials by Marilynne K. Roach; Definitive Account of the Salem Witch Trials Individualizes The People Involved

Weekly Reader: Six Women of Salem: The Untold Story of the Accused and Their Accusers in the Salem Witch Trials by Marilynne K. Roach; Definitive Account of the Salem Witch Trials Individualizes The People Involved

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews




Of the hundreds of accounts of the Salem Witch Trials, two books stand as the definitive account: The Witches, Salem 1692 by Stacy Schiff is one. It is a comprehensive account of the Trials, covering the people and the events and analyzes the potential reasoning behind it by offering social, psychological, physical, and religious motivations.




Six Women of Salem: The Untold Story of the Accused and Their Accusers in the Salem Witch Trials by Marilynne K. Roach is the other. Instead of being a comprehensive account of the entire event, Roach personalizes it. She focuses on six individuals to show how the Trials affected specific people. While she offers some theories, they narrow in comparison to the immediacy of how lives were destroyed by accusing others and being victims of the accusations.




Roach wisely selected six different women from various social statuses, families, and that stood on different sides in the Trial. They were:




Rebecca Nurse-An elderly woman with a large supportive family. She often helped many people in the Village through troubled child births and illnesses. Despite her good reputation, her family was involved in various lawsuits against another family: The Putnams who became their sworn enemies. Despite the petitions from her family to have her exonerated, she was arrested, tried, and executed by hanging.




Bridget Bishop-A tough poor woman who had a bad temper and three marriages. One of her marriages was abusive and she was forced to stand in the pillory after she defended herself. She was also known to be somewhat bawdy and wore a red petticoat to the dismay of many of her fellow Puritans. Like Nurse, she was arrested, tried, and executed by hanging.




Mary English-A well-to-do woman, she married a man from Jersey who Anglicised his name from Philippe L’Anglais to Phillip English. She was one of the wealthiest families in Salem, but was distrusted because of her wealth and immigrant status. She was arrested and tried along with her husband, but thanks to some influential friends and money, they managed to escape.




Ann Putnam Sr.-The wife of Thomas Putnam and mother of Annie Putnam Jr., one of the afflicted girls. Putnam suffered many stillbirths and infant deaths, becoming afflicted herself and blamed her troubles on her family's enemies, the Nurse family, specifically Rebecca. Her daughter, Annie, became one of the star witnesses identifying people from nearby towns such as Andover and Lynn. After the Trials, Putnam’s daughter Annie was the only one of the accusers to make a public apology after her parents’ deaths.




Tituba-A slave in the home of Rev. Samuel Parris, the first afflicted family. Despite the theories of many, Roach’s book shows that she did not practice fortune telling to frighten the girls and only resorted to folk magic once at the behest of a white neighbor to make a “witch’s cake” to identify the tormentor of the afflictions. Despite this, she was fingered by the girls as the perpetrator and she in turn named two other outcasts: Sarah Goode, a beggar and Sarah Osborne, a woman who had a common law arrangement with a lover. Despite implicating others, Tituba remained in prison throughout the Trials and was eventually sold by Parris to pay off the prison debt that accrued during her confinement.




Mary Warren-A servant girl in the home of John and Elizabeth Proctor. She may have been one of the girls who engaged in fortune telling (by putting a shattered egg in a glass and seeing an image of the man she was to marry. One of the girls believed to be either Rev. Parris’ daughter, Betty or niece, Abigail saw a coffin.). She became one of the accusers who claimed to be haunted by the Devil and named her employers as well as various other people. Though she was eventually tried for witchcraft herself, she continued to accuse others while still in prison. After the Trials, she was released and disappeared from history.




In limiting the accounts to just these six women, Roach makes the accounts of the Trial more personal and intimate. She writes about the women's backgrounds and their various behaviors throughout the Trials. They also show that the accusations could fall on anyone. A woman who was considered a pillar of the community like Nurse, could be tried as a witch just as easily as a woman who previously had a rough reputation like Bishop. Roach showed the innocent lives that were ruined by religious paranoia and fear mongering that led to false accusations and executions or acquired reputations as accused witches.




Roach also engages in some literary techniques. At the beginning and ending of each chapter, Roach writes italicized sections that go into the character’s minds. She admits that these sections are just wishful thinking, but she is able to fill in the blanks with possibilities regarding their motivations and thoughts during their imprisonments.




Tituba in particular benefited from this approach. Because so little is known about her historically, Roach only had a few records and her imagination to go on. Many historians don't know where she came from originally (though Parris purchased her in Barbados), the proper spelling of her name, or what manner of name Tituba is since there are variations in various South American and West African countries. They are even uncertain whether Tituba was black or fully black. Since many of the court documents describe her as “Tituba Indian” or “Tituba, an Indian woman” rather than the usual epithets to describe a black person, it's possible that she may have hailed from South America originally and may have been a First Nation Native American woman or at least mixed race.




Roach’s writings portray Tituba as a woman caught up in a “damned if you do, damned if you don't” situation. She was at the mercy of her white owners and was bound by their laws and morals, having little say in the matter. In the sections depicting Titus's thoughts, she is given the option of either saying she isn't a witch and being beaten severely before her execution or confessing and never being trusted by her master and being sold anyway. While some may have criticized Tituba’s confession as the spark that lit the fire, Roach clearly understood that she was considered the lowest rung in a society that cared very little about her and considered her property. It makes her actions understandable that she would implicate people who had little opinion for her. Also in her presumed confessions, she would insist that “Satan wanted her to hurt the girls,” which she refused, Tituba painted herself as someone who loved the young girls in her care and wanted to protect them even though they named her.




The book also takes us into the eyes of both accusers and accused, the ones who claimed to be afflicted and the ones that were tried as witches, particularly Mary Warren and Anne Putnam Sr. Like reading books about the Holocaust or other terrible periods in history, it is important to understand why people act the way they do. Why did people feel it was their right to consider other people property? Why did they acquire such a low opinion of Jewish people that they were able to send them to death camps without a thought then insisting they were only following orders? And why did people believe so badly they were cursed by the Devil that they had to find someone to blame and that included their friends, family, and neighbors?




While many debate whether the afflicted were affected by mass hysteria, ergotism, or were simply faking it, Roach portrays Warren and Putnam as sincere in their beliefs that the Devil was cursing them. Putnam believed that the deaths of her infant children were the results of God’s punishment for sin in the village. A fear of God's wrath and punishment can cause people to see the Devil everywhere even in those they know.

For Mary Warren, she believed that something was affecting her. While that something more than likely was religious anxiety as well as untreated or unverified at the time mental illness, Warren more than likely stuck to the party line that she was cursed by witches out of fear and confusion. By the time the Trials continued, she and Putnam, as well as the others, were so far gone that to stop would be an admission of guilt. To fully understand history, you have to understand why people did horrible things so they can never be repeated.




Six Women of Salem is an excellent book that brings human faces to this long ago troubling time in history and shows who they were and how they acted and showed they really weren't that different from who we are today.

October's Schedule

October's Schedule



September was a great month! Not only did I finish the scheduled books early, but reviewed an extra Forgotten Favorite, and created a new category for New Authors and Books.




This month the focus will be on my favorite holiday: Halloween! I plan on reviewing some well-known horror novels and non-fiction books on some real-life people involved with the supernatural. It promises to be a fun time to scare up a good book that will be worth reeling and writhing about. Haha haha! (Laughs like the Crypt Keeper from Tales from the Crypt)





Classics Corner: Turn of The Screw by Henry James


Classics Corner: The Call of Cthulhu and Other Stories by H.P. Lovecraft


Weekly Reader: The Six Women of Salem by Marylynne K. Roach


Classics Corner: The Shining by Stephen King


Weekly Reader: Marie Leveau: The Voodoo Queen of New Orleans by Martha Ward


Classics Corner: Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews


Weekly Reader: The Secret Life of Houdini: The First Real Super Hero by William Kush


Classics Corner: The Witching Hour by Anne Rice


Forgotten Favorites: The Lamplighter by Anthony O’Neill


Weekly Reader: Edgar Cayce: The Sleeping Prophet by Sidney Kincaid

Forgotten Favorites: Very Special People: The Struggles, Loves, and Triumphs of Human Oddities by Frederick Drimmer; An Amazing Biography of Some Very Special People Indeed

Forgotten Favorites: Very Special People: The Struggles, Loves, and Triumphs of Human Oddities by Frederick Drimmer; An Amazing Biography of Some Very Special People Indeed


By Julie Sara Porter


Bookworm Reviews





In the 2017 musical biopic of P.T. Barnum, The Greatest Showman, the sideshow performers such as Charles “General Tom Thumb” Stratton, a little person, Chang and Eng, conjoined twins, and Lettie Lutz, a bearded lady crash a swank party that they have been denied entry by the party goers and Barnum himself. They sing the triumphant Oscar nominated song, “This Is Me” where they admit that yes they are different, but they will persevere despite the derision of others. It's a stirring unforgettable moment.


Fans of movies of the Golden Age of Hollywood may be familiar with the 1931 film, Freaks which deals with a conniving trapeze artist and her strong man lover who conspire to murder her husband, Hans, a little person, for his fortune. Most of the movie’s cast includes various real life sideshow performers including Violet and Daisy Hilton, a pair of conjoined twins (whose characters get engaged during the movie), Lady Olga, a bearded lady (who in the movie gives birth to a daughter fathered by Pete Robinson, a human skeleton), Johnny Eck, a legless man, Frances O’Connor, an armless woman, Prince Randion, who was born with neither arms or legs (but in the movie shows he is capable of lighting and smoking a cigarette), and Harry and Daisy Doll, a brother and sister team of little people who play the main character, Hans, and his female friend, Freida. (The DVD/Blu-ray of the movie includes a documentary in which each performer’s lives are described before and after Freak’s release.)





Even though they were made 87 years apart, both The Greatest Showman and Freaks show the struggles faced by people who were once called “Freaks”, or “Human Oddities.” People who look different because they are too short, too tall, are conjoined, have white albino skin, are missing arms and legs, are bearded women and many others. Their stories were stories of constant struggles of being accepted by society including families who constantly worried about them, smothered, or abandoned them, finding work (most of which ended up working in sideshows), and finding acceptance or love. Author, Frederick Drimmer gathered their stories in his 1976 book, Very Special People: The Struggles, Loves, and Triumphs of Human Oddities. Many of these people may not be well-known to modern Readers, but they are unforgettable in their strengths, determination, and willingness to make a life for themselves. Each story seems to say, (to quote the song): “ I am brave/I am bruised/I am who I’m meant to be/This is me.”





The stories are divided into eight parts and 34 chapters which explore various people sorted by their abnormalities. They are moving, heartwarming, honest, and even at times humorous (when asked if she would March in the Easter Parade, the bearded Lady Olga said “Absolutely not, someone may mistake (her) for a Supreme Court Justice.”) Above all, they are inspirational. Not many Readers would forget the story of Hermann Carl Unthan, a man born without arms who became an accomplished violinist and also learned to swim, ride horseback, and target shoot with his legs.





Another fascinating story is that of Violet and Daisy Hilton, the conjoined twins who appeared not only in the film, Freaks but in another movie called Chained For Life. The two were abused by their guardian and her husband until they came of legal age and took their guardians to court. The Hilton Sisters had short-lived marriages but played the saxophone in vaudeville and befriended such performers as Bob Hope (who taught them how to dance) and Harry Houdini (who taught them to mentally block each other out when they wanted alone time.).





There is also the chapter about Julia Pastrana, a Mexican woman with hair on her face, arms, and legs. She also captivated audiences with her graceful dancing and singing in both English and her native Spanish.





One of the most well known stories was that of Joseph Carey Merrick AKA, The Elephant Man, an Englishman with neurofibromatosis, a skin condition which causes lesions and tumors all over the body. Merrick was the subject of the play and movie, The Elephant Man, the latter of which was directed by David Lynch and starred Anthony Hopkins and John Hurt as Merrick. Told by Merrick’s friend and mentor, Sir Frederick Treves, The Elephant Man’s chapter is about a man frequently shunned, abused, and put on display by a cold and uncaring public only to be permitted to permanently reside at the London Hospital and became a celebrity because of his kind amiable personality and childlike nature. Merrick made use of a dressing kit, even though he couldn't use its contents, by imagining that he was a dandy man-about-town. After he attended a pantomime of Puss in Boots with Treves (hidden behind a boxed seat curtain), Merrick spoke about the play as though it was a real event asking questions like “Do you suppose that poor man is still in the dungeon?”





One of the most fascinating aspects of the book is how it goes to extremes from people with too many limbs to those who don't have enough and from people who are below and above average height. Robert Pershing Wadlow, who was dubbed the Alton Giant because of his vast height, was one such example. By the time he began school, he wore clothes that fit a 17 year old and by the time he was eight, he passed his hand-me-downs to his father. The chapter is filled with moments where Wadlow held silverware that seemed doll house-like in his hands, where he had to lay hotel beds side to side so he could get a good night's sleep, and above all where a slight fracture could lead to debilitating problems later. Wadlow’s excessive height caused the calcium in his bones to be weakened and he died at the young age of 27 when he was 8 ft 11.1 inches tall. Nonetheless he made good money as the spokesperson for a St. Louis based shoe company that offered him free shoes as a bonus. (Something he desperately needed since he outgrew shoes almost as soon as he received them.)





From the problems of the very tall to those experienced by the very small and Drimmer shows that in the section describing little people, one of whom was Charles Sherwood Stratton who went under the stage name “General Tom Thumb Jr..” Drimmer writes that Stratton could not reach doorknobs without help, was often unable to get out of beds that were high off the ground, and was unable to do many of the physical tasks in his small town of mostly farmers and whalers. After he was introduced to P.T. Barnum, Stratton became a consummate performer who sang, danced, and did imitations of people like Napoleon. In his years of show business, Stratton met many notables like Queen Victoria and Abraham Lincoln (who hosted Stratton's White House wedding to fellow little person, Lavinia Warren.)





While many people look down on sideshows today saying they were exploitative, Drummer's writing reveals that in the time period in which many of these human oddities lived, there weren't too many other opportunities for employment or acceptance for people with extreme physical abnormalities. Sideshows not only hired them but the performers often found love and friendship among others who were equally physically different. (That closeness even spread during the off-season when many human oddities settled in Gibsonton, Florida, a small town outside of Sarasota. According to Drimmer’s book, so-called normal residents of Gibsonton were so used to the human oddity population that they treated them like any other local as fellow citizens, schoolmates, church goers, and PTA members.)





Very Special People shows that despite the exterior, the human spirit can triumph within individuals. It also shows that anyone at anytime could be an outcast. This idea is best demonstrated in the introduction in which Drimmer's daughter dreamed that her arms disappeared and she was mocked and jeered at by the people around her. “Stop looking at me like that,” she screamed. “What if I am physically different from you? I am still a human being! Treat me like one! I have the same-exactly the same feelings as you! I am you!”

New Author/Book Alert: World Shaken: Guardians of the Zodiac by J.J. Excelsior; First Book Looks To Be The Start of A Great Series

New Author/Book Alert: World Shaken: Guardians of the Zodiac by J.J. Excelsior; First Book Looks To Be The Start of A Great Series

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews




One of the perks that I have in being a freelance Editor/Proofreader/Review is being there when a new book or author is discovered. It is amazing being at the forefront of the creation of something that hopefully will be read and loved by many. I had that feeling with Jordan Frost’s The Midori Chronicles. I have that again reading World Shaken: Guardians of the Zodiac by J.J. Excelsior. This has the potential to become a great graphic novel or animated series and it would be thrilling if it did. This book is a beautifully illustrated and intrinsically plotted story which seems partly a tribute to the old pulp novels of the Golden Age of Science Fiction and partly has the strong characterization of post-modern science fiction.




Something weird is happening to the various planets and bodies in our solar system of the Milky Way Galaxy. Each area seems to be in the grip of some disaster whether by natural, biological, or psychological means and no one knows what's going on. The seas of the water planet, Neptune have become polluted with oil and are deadly. Even though Pluto has an artificial sun for warmth, its temperatures are plummeting below freezing. Volcanoes are erupting and ash is raining down on Mercury. The Sun is diminishing. The residents of the Moon are in civil war. A plague is affecting Jupiter's citizens. The rings of Saturn are missing and the people are succumbing to insanity. There are floods on Mars, earthquakes on Venus, and twisters on Uranus. (There is no mention of how Earth is affected. It may not be a part of this book or Earth’s status may be saved for a later book.) It's not a pretty sight.




Each celestial body is guarded by an immortal being who is not only that world’s guardian but represents their sign of the Zodiac. Excelsior clearly did her homework. In astrological lore, each sign corresponds with a different celestial body and she shows those connections that the characters have with their worlds. (Of course scientifically nobody could exist in these worlds but that's what science fiction is for: to imagine the impossible.) The guardians are: Mika, the Highest Leo who rules the Sun, Azare, the Highest Virgo and Tormod, the Highest Gemini who rule Mercury, Atalanta, the Highest Taurus and Nefsunsi the Highest Libra who rule the land and sky respectively on Venus, Serenity, the Highest Cancer who is in charge of the Moon, Santrista, the Highest Aries who heads Mars, Advilion, the Highest Sagittarius who is the leader of Jupiter, Saturn, the Highest Capricorn who heads (naturally) Saturn, Namur the Highest Aquarius who becomes the leader of Uranus in place of the former Highest Aquarius, Gia, Xenobia, the Highest Pisces who leads Neptune, and Magnocer, the Highest Scorpio who has control of Pluto.




While their worlds are afflicted with problems, the Guardians meet and try to find the solutions and to find out what is wrong with them. The biggest problems however are not outside their worlds. The biggest problems are within the Guardians themselves. Even though they are a strong-willed powerful bunch who are clearly worried about their individual worlds and their people (of course showing it in various degrees), they don't get along with each other. Most meetings usually end in a physical, verbal, or magical smack-down between two or more Guardians. No wonder Namur calls them out later by declaring that they can't talk to each other without arguing, let alone find solutions to save their worlds.




We, the Readers, learn the cause of the problems and it's the Guardians themselves or so it seems. Celeste, a Goddess-like being who rules over the Guardians created these disasters. In a Job-like fashion, she hopes that the troubles would bring the Milky Way Guardians together to put their egos aside and unite to protect their worlds. No such luck. Not only do the Guardians have to struggle with each other, but Celeste also has to deal with the Man of Fire, another God-like being who has his own posse of astrological guardians that he wants to put in the Milky Way Guardian's places.




Excelsior is a brilliant new voice in the world of science fiction. Both her words and her illustrations show this. The book’s illustrations are detailed in a black and white graphic style. She draws various action oriented beings in dramatic poses such as Xenobia struggling to protect her people in Neptune's pollution infested waters. Another gripping illustration shows an irate and suspicious Santrista attacking Namur after she discovers Gia, the former Highest Aquarius, is missing.

The heroes pictured are thankfully not all white males. Excelsior portrays the Guardians as various ethnicities, sexualities, and races. She also shows many strong female characters in active roles fighting enemies and defending their home worlds as do the male characters. If this series ever does take off, it will be a boon for fans of all genders, races, and sexualities to find characters to identify with.




Excelsior's illustrations show heroic figures doing brave things like characters from those old pulp novels who wake up thinking of nothing but their next adventure and how to save their worlds. However, the dichotomy between what the characters look like and who they are is very different. Instead of God and Goddess-like too- good-to-be-true Heroes and Heroines, Excelsior's writing shows that these are characters with hang-ups, insecurities, and egos of their own.




Excelsior shows that she knows a lot about the astrological signs by featuring characters that behave according to the personality traits that correspond with their sign. This makes for a fascinating multi-faceted bunch but a group that can easily turn on each other and one that will take a miracle to function as a team. When you have a quick-tempered and impulsive Aries like Santrista, a sociable but vain Libra like Nefsunsi, the logical but modest Virgo, Azare, and the fatalistic manipulative Capricorn, Saturn, among others, it's no wonder that these characters don't get along.




By far the two best Guardians are Xenobia and Namur. As the Highest Pisces, Xenobia is very intuitive and compassionate towards her people. She clearly longs to protect them and heal the waters to her beloved planet. However, she can also see the bigger picture of the suffering other worlds and begins the process of bringing the 12 Guardians together. She is willing to challenge the others’ isolationism to form a real team.




While Xenobia illustrates the best behavior in an experienced Guardian, Namur illustrates the struggles of a newly made Guardian. His former mistress, Gia died and he is left with the struggles of a planet ravaged by twisters and filled with terrified people (including his precocious younger sister), the grief of losing his mentor, lover, and childhood friend, and deciding to join a group whose members can't stand each other. While Gia showed her Aquarian streak by becoming so concerned on a humanitarian level for her people that she was driven to despair, Namur also reflects the character of Aquarius. He is an outsider from the Guardians because his newly named status and shows his independent and rebellious nature by refusing to join the team.




The book is very open-ended as the characters take virtual and psychic journeys to each other's worlds to get a close look at the disasters. It leaves the Reader excited for more as does the introductions of Man of Fire’s Guardians who are more interchangeable and not nearly defined as the Milky Way Guardians. It doesn't help that all their first names start with “Z”. (The only one we get to know somewhat is Zahina, an Aquarius who bonds with Namur's sister, Aurora and befriends Namur.)




These plot angles of the virtual psychic trips into the worlds and the arrival of the other Guardians provide the book’s climax and leaves the Reader waiting impatiently for the next interplanetary journey. If the first book is any indication, it should be a brilliant and exciting one indeed.

New Author/Book Alert: Whispers in the Dark New Dawn's Light Book (The Midori Chronicles) by Jordan Frost; A Brilliant Start to a Potentially Great Fantasy Series

New Author/Book Alert: Whispers in the Dark New Dawn's Light Book (The Midori Chronicles) by Jordan Frost; A Brilliant Start to a Potentially Great Fantasy Series

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews


Spoilers: In my work as a Freelance Editor/Proofreader/Reviewer, I have come across new books written by new up-and-coming authors. I believe that everyone has a story inside them waiting to be told. That's probably why there are so many people these days taking full advantage of self-publishing sites and e-books hoping to get an audience for their stories.
So because of this, (and to combine the two aspects of my career: the Editor/Proofreader and the Blogger/Book Reviewer), I am creating a new category with this blog, “The New Author/New Book Alert” to give some brand new authors and books the recognition that they deserve. Some may be first-time authors with their first novels. Others may be authors who have published a few things here and there but could use an extra shout out.

Now let out your most agonizing groans (Ugghh), because there are rules to this little series:
1. It must be a new book released within this year. Last year is possible, but nothing earlier than 2017 for this category. (You have Classics Corner, Forgotten Favorites, or Weekly Reader for older books.)
2. While I am mostly interested in new authors, I am also interested in authors with new releases that have received little recognition. For example, I am also interested in authors who have yet to be on bestseller lists, haven't won awards, aren't publicly recognized as authors, or perhaps moved from one form of writing to another. Maybe they moved from short stories to novels, or nonfiction to fiction and so on.
3. The book can be released either as an e-book or print. But a print review will take longer for me to post because I have to receive the copy first.
4. This is not a regular series by any means just whenever I receive notice. It could be once or twice a month or not at all. Sometimes I will seek them out via Upwork or Facebook. Usually they seek me out or someone refers them. If you know of any new authors or are new authors, or have a new book by an author that needs more recognition, please let me know by email at juliesaraporter@gmail.com. You may also DM me on Facebook or LinkedIn. If you are also an Upwork client, do not hesitate to contact me and make an offer there.
5. You are in luck that I usually like everything that I read, but I won't be shy in saying that something needs work. I am polite with my criticisms but honest. I have written very few completely negative reviews and the few I have were classics (Wuthering Heights, Infinite Jest, and American Psycho are recent examples.) so chances are, it will be a positive review. Mostly.
6. The reviews are fairly long. Read some of my other entries for examples. While I do evaluate the book in terms of whether I like it or not, they are more like analyses than reviews where I focus on certain aspects like characterization or thematic elements. That's not bad in and of itself but if you want to put the review on Amazon (or want me to do it), it might have to be abbreviated. Which I give you permission to do so. I am promoting your work so you should do whatever you can to make yourself noticed as I am reviewing and editing books to get noticed.
7. I don't mind reviewing books as I  said, but I WILL NOT review any book that I am asked to edit. I consider it wrong since I am involved in the making of the book. So if you wish to hire my services, please make up your mind if you want me to edit and proofread the book or publish a review for it. I won't do both jobs for the same book.
8. If you want to pay me, I won't stop you but you are not required to. (I will not reveal whether it is paid, if you do not wish me to. )Payment is between $10.00-30.00, plus the price of the book. (It may increase if I get more.) If I am broke, I may ask for the price of the book in advance. I will compose the review on Google Docs then after it is aired on my blog, I will send an invoice via Wave app. If you are also on Upwork as I am, then you may pay me through that.
9. I may give you the review to evaluate afterwards but only to see if I got key points in plot
and character names and spellings right. The opinion will not change.

Now the rules are out of the way, let's go to the inaugural review of an inaugural author. I present Whispers in the Dark Part One New Dawn's Light( The Midori Chronicles) by Jordan Frost.

Jordan Frost is not a recognizable name in the world of epic fantasy, but her first novel, Whispers in the Dark should prove to be a good first step.

The world of Midori (a very pretty name. It’s a common Japanese female name that means “Green.” The significance is not yet known.) is ruled by Lord Kane, a tyrannical elven sorcerer. Periodically, he demands the world's best mages come to him as sacrifices. (The outcome is every bit as unpleasant as you can imagine.) The only thing that can stop him is a prophecy in which a child, born of illegitimate blood of the deceased royal family, will conquer him and restore the throne. Various characters set out to either find the missing heir or to escape from Kane’s prison and avoid recapture.


The plot is a typical one found in these type of genres where a group of rebels seek to overthrow a tyrant. That's not a bad thing. Interestingly enough, I am reading Hero With A Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell which discusses archetypes. Whispers in  the Dark is an example of the Heroic Journey in which the characters receive the Call to Action (Find the Heir), are given the Tasks and Commands along the way (Search for the Witch, Go Through the Dark Woods), and so on. It's an archetypal journey and this book is no exception. However, the characters are brilliant and make this journey an amazing albeit familiar one.

Various characters have their own agendas as they travel through the land searching for the heir and avoiding Kane and his goons. Boone, a roguish thief is assigned to deliver information to a witch who will also point him in the heir’s direction. He uses both his clever wiles and the muscles of a large kind barbarian that he meets along the way to avoid trouble.

Titus, a healer is ordered by Kane's guards to search the vast library for any potential leads on the heir. He is fascinating as he debates the task he is ordered to perform and the disdain that he has for Kane. He acts with both hatred at the tyrant and fear of losing his head.

Some of the most interesting characters are two couples that circumstances force to travel together. Jensen, one of Kane's former guards escapes from prison with Solana, a haughty mage and potential sacrifice. Much of the humor is found between this odd couple trying to one-up each other with Solana’s intelligence and studies of magic competing against Jensen’s fighting skills and ability to use weapons that can detect and remove magic. Often Jensen uses a light-hearted approach by flirting with Solana or joking about their circumstances which Solana will bite back with an eye roll and a sarcastic response. (Usually, she will retort, “There's something wrong with you.”)They become closer as the book goes along. It is unclear by the end of the book whether they become lovers, (though Jensen develops romantic feelings for Solana, revelations in the plot prevent him from expressing them.), but they already show that they make a good team of friends who are occasionally at each other's throats.


The other interesting couple are Garret Draig, a pirate captain and Miriana, a mage and Solana's twin sister. Miriana isn't as feisty as her sister. In fact she lived a very isolated life in which she read novels and dreamed of a life of adventure and romance with Gerard, the heroic captain of her books. She is rescued by Garrett en route to being offered as a sacrifice to Kane. While Garrett is a nice guy who wants to protect Miriana, the boorish sometimes chauvinistic captain is hardly the romantic hero of her dreams. In fact, Garrett mocks this romantic portrayal which was actually written by a friend of his. It is a very clever meta moment in which a character pokes fun at the tropes in fantasy and romance in a book that is a tribute to them. It is as though Frost enjoys playing in a fantasy world but doesn't mind mocking the logistics inside it.

The action moves along briskly and some questions are answered (including a potential identity for the missing heir), but more are raised and enough suspense is created for the Reader to look forward to the next book and what else Frost has to offer.

Banned Books Special: The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini; A Moving Novel About Friendship in Time of War and Conflict

Banned Books Special: The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini; A Moving Novel About Friendship in Time of War and Conflict

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews




Spoilers: When we are kids, we are told and believe that everything is going to be okay. We believe that our best friends will be our best friends for life, our families will always be together, and that the bad things that happen in the world that grown-ups talk about on the news won't possibly affect us. We look forward to our favorite games, cartoons, summer vacations and holidays like Christmas with great excitement. As we grow older and are hit with the realities of death, divorce, poverty, war and so on we become more aware how dark life really is and look back on those childhood days with an idyllic nostalgia.




Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner is about that. It is told from the point of view of Amir, an Afghan man who recalls his childhood friendship with wondrous detail and how that friendship changed because of world events and Amir’s own weaknesses.




Amir’s best friend growing up was Hassan, the son of his family's servant. The two grew up in 1970’s Kabul and even though they are separated by class, ethnicity, and religion (Hassan’s family are poor Hazara Shiite Muslims while Amir’s are wealthy Pashtun Sunni Muslims.), the two share some things in common. They both lost their mothers as infants (Amir's died in childbirth and Hassan's walked out on him and his father shortly after he was born.) and their fathers were also childhood friends as well as master and servant. Amir and Hassan share many interests such as American Western films, adventure stories which Amir reads and Hassan listens, and kite flying. Kite flying is a particularly important past time as the two participate in the annual Kite Flying Festival Events in which Amir flies the kite and Hassan runs after it. Hosseini develops his two lead characters really well as he explores their childhood games, interests, and families. Even though there are some conflicts, the two are portrayed with the innocent idealism of childhood. They are ready for fun days, adventure, and dreaming of their future until life and reality hits them in the faces forcing them to mature long before they reach adulthood.




The two families become affected by the Soviet attack on Afghanistan and the constant days of bombs, armies, and fighter planes that fill the Afghan landscape. They are also affected by the increasing racism that Amir’s classmates feel towards other ethnic groups like the Hazara. One classmate, Assef openly admires Hitler’s Final Solution and is fond of taunting and physically bullying Hassan for being from a different ethnic group.

Besides the troubles from the outside world, Amir also recognizes conflict at home. While Hassan swears unconditional loyalty to Amir, Amir feels guilty that he doesn't feel the same. As an adult, he is filled with guilt for all of the times that he teased Hassan for being illiterate or pushed his loyalty by bossing Hassan around. Above all, he feels remorse for his jealousy that his father, Baba treated both Hassan and Amir equally and that he got along with the active practical Hassan better than the introverted literary Amir.




Both the political and the private struggles culminate during the Kite Flying Festival when Hassan is attacked and raped by Assef and his friends. Instead of defending his best friend, Amir ran in fear. Ashamed of his actions, Amir orchestrates the dismissal of Hassan and his father, Ali from Amir's family home and his life.




Even though the two friends are separated, the Soviet-Afghanistan conflict and Hassan's rape followed by Amir’s inaction continue to follow Amir. Even as he and his father flee Afghanistan for America and live a life as impoverished refugees, Hassan continues to haunt Amir like a ghost. Even when Hassan’s not there in body, he’s still there in spirit and in Amir’s consciousness.




Despite the troubles both in his former country and in his mind, Amir begins to settle in America. He rekindles his relationship with Baba as the old man mourns his former life, befriends only other Afghan refugees, and health declines. Amir becomes his caregiver seeing a man who he once thought of as having a high honor code, shriveled into despair. Amir also marries another Afghan immigrant with a troubled romantic past and begins a career as a talented best-selling author.




Just when Amir begins to settle in his new life, he receives a letter from an old friend that forces him to return to Afghanistan. The chapters when Amir returns to Afghanistan are among the most heartbreaking as he sees a country torn apart by war. He travels among destroyed buildings, little vegetation, the Taliban ruling their country with violent and religious dogma, adults with missing limbs and gone mad with grief, and children who have been deprived of their childhoods. Afghanistan becomes like a giant graveyard as Amir recalls his youth which seemed so pleasant at the time and contrasts it to the destroyed country before him.




Amir's return to Afghanistan also gives him a chance to confront his past guilt. He learns the truth of some family secrets involving his father, Amir, and Hassan and also learns of Hassan's current whereabouts. In one suspenseful passage Amir encounters a former enemy turned Taliban leader, and Hassan's young son. This moment and the aftermath when Amir bonds with the boy give Amir a second chance to face his old fears and atone for his past inaction in running when Hassan needed him the most.




The Kite Runner is a moving novel about a friendship that is torn apart by war, deception, and conflict. But ultimately it is about getting beyond that conflict and reconciling with and forgiving others and oneself.

Weekly Reader: Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination by Neal Gabler; A Comprehensive Biography About The Good and The Bad of The Man Who Taught Us All To Wish Upon a Star

Weekly Reader: Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination by Neal Gabler; A Comprehensive Biography About The Good and The Bad of The Man Who Taught Us All To Wish Upon a Star

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews




Like the subject of last week's biography, Barbie, the image of Walt Disney and the company he produced are what we put into them. Are Disney's products beautiful works of art and offer a sense of magic, escapism, and wish fulfillment to those who come into contact with them? Are they over commercialized pieces of tripe that distort the original stories from which they came turning them into sentimental nonsense? What about Walt Disney himself? Was he a brilliant artist who created wonderful characters and worlds? Was he an anti-Semitic perfectionist who peddled mindless drivel to the masses?




Neal Gabler's comprehensive biography of Disney gives us both sides to his character: the creative innovator and the driven perfectionist. Like many people, he was neither good nor bad and Gabler gives us this multifaceted look at him.




No matter what we feel about Disney and his creations, what can be agreed upon is that they are pure escapism. Whether you ride the rides at the Disney park, watch your favorite animated feature for the hundredth time, or laugh at the antics of Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and their friends you are transported to another vibrant, clean, beautiful, and hopeful world. This theme of escapism is not coincidental. In fact, Gabler’s book shows that this was a theme that Disney had been looking for his whole life.




Even though Disney was born in Chicago in 1901, he and his family moved to Marceline, Missouri when he was four. Even though Disney's father was a hard taskmaster, he had an idyllic childhood in Marceline. Gabler’s writing showed Disney’s childhood years as one of playing with friends, studying at school, and exploring nature. Disney would return to his nostalgic feelings about Marceline and recreate that childhood town or towns just like it in movies like So Dear To My Heart and Pollyanna and on the Main Street U.S.A. section at Disneyland.




Disney's early career showed the beginnings of his tremendous talent and his detached nature. He created early characters like Oswald The Lucky Rabbit, the precursor to his later characters. One of his most creative early works were the Alice Comedies, which depicted a live-action girl interacting with animated characters.

Unfortunately, those early years also taught Disney a lesson about betrayal. Charles Mintz, one of Disney's colleagues signed a contract with Universal Pictures giving him the rights to Oswald and taking Disney out of the loop. This moment would become the groundwork for Disney's guarded personality and suspicions towards his employees.




Disney's desire for escape and imagination not only came into creating his characters but in remembering how they were created. He often told the story that he created Mickey Mouse during a train ride in which he drew a mouse figure and suggested the name Mortimer for the little fellow. His wife, Lillian, didn't care for the name and suggested Mickey instead. The truth is more prosaic than the legend. Actually Mickey was created and named during a brainstorming session between Disney and his animators in which they suggested various animals and settled on a mouse.

Despite the dispute in his creation, Mickey became a success after the release of his first sound cartoon, Steamboat Willie. The popularity of the character was also helped by the original Mickey Mouse Club in which children were invited to attend screenings of the cartoon shorts as well as the merchandise with Mickey plastered all over the place. (Proving that Disney like the company after him would be an expert on marketing and commercializing his characters.)



Despite the perception of Disney and his company becoming conservative and formulaic, the book reveals Disney's willingness to take risks and innovate his creations, particularly during the early years. One of his most famous examples was in making Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, his first feature length animated film. Many thought that no one would sit through a feature length cartoon. Disney and his animators tried unique approaches to animating the movie such as using a multiplane camera to provide background detail to the landscape and rotoscoping (filming live action humans and animating over that image) to capture facial styles and features. He also improved upon the original story by providing names and personalities to the seven dwarves and offering dark visuals such as a terrified Snow White running through the woods where hallucinations frighten her and the beautiful Wicked Queen using ingredients like a scream of fright, an old hag’s cackle, and the dark of night for a magic potion to turn her into an old peddler. Disney’s first animated feature was such a success and pleased him so well that to the end of his life, he considered Snow White and Mary Poppins as the only two features he considered perfect.




Besides his pleasure for Mary Poppins on a technical level including combining live action and animation in the scene where Mary, her friend, Bert, and her charges, Jane and Michael Banks go
on a “Jolly Holiday” through a chalk drawing of the countryside, Mary Poppins also touched Disney on a personal level. He identified with George Banks, the father who is unable to spend time with his children and regretted it in the end because Disney did not spend as much time with his wife, Lillian and daughters, Diane and Sharon as much as he liked. Disney also loved the Sherman Brothers song, “Feed the Birds”, a moving song about an old bird woman feeding birds outside St. Paul’s Cathedral who urges people to give money to feed the birds for “tuppence a bag.” He loved the song so much that whenever he met with the brothers, all he would have to say is, “Play it” and they knew which song he wanted to hear.




Sometimes the risks didn't always pay off. When Disney created the movie Fantasia, he intended it to be a continuing project of animated shorts put to classical music much like they already did with the Silly Symphony shorts. The movie would then be updated every few years with new segments. He also wanted to make the movie a full sensory experience by inserting odors into the theaters including floral, gunpowder, saltwater and other scents. Unfortunately despite Disney's ambitions for the project, Fantasia tanked in its initial release discontinuing his proposed ongoing project idea for the movie until 1999 when his company released Fantasia 2000. Many children were reportedly bored by the music, parents either objected to the animation segments or felt that they were inappropriate for children. Classical movie buffs, including Igor Stravinsky whose piece “Rite of Spring” was used in the movie (and whose “Firebird Suite” would be used for Fantasia 2000) thought that Disney's animated segments distorted the music’s original styles. Disney took this failure as a personal blow. It's a shame that Disney didn't live long enough to see the hippy generation give Fantasia a new life as an ultimate visual experience just as they did with Alice in Wonderland, which also similarly tanked upon its initial release. Both Fantasia and Alice in Wonderland obtained cult followings and then later received the critical and commercial success that they originally had been denied proving that sometimes Disney's vision wasn't always wrong, just far ahead of his time.




Gabler also explores Disney's darker nature with great detail. Despite giving a warm welcoming persona, in truth he was very guarded and standoffish to his employees. He wasn't above showing preferential treatment to animators who had been with him from the beginning or that he favored including his legendary “Nine Old Men” such as Ollie Johnston, Milt Kahl, Ward Kimball, and Woolie Reitherman. He considered them friends and would laugh and joke with them and approve of their ideas for scenes and characters (making it perfectly clear that his word was the final say.).

However, he wouldn't have as much camaraderie with other animators like Freddie Moore (who had been fired by the company twice.) and many of the artists that did the lesser known work such as in-betweeners and clean up. (Those who didn't draw the initial characters but went scene by scene frame by frame to make sure the characters and scenes were uniform and mistake free.) This hierarchy created dissension in the ranks as many who were not in Disney's favor feared his criticism and wrath. He often made public examples of them either in the studio or in the Sweatbox where they watched the rushes. Many of the animators who weren't in Disney's favor either quit in fury or were outright dismissed.




This “With me or against me” attitude was particularly noticeable during the Animator’s Strike of 1941 in which a group of animators led by Art Babbit campaigned to unionize Disney's animation team. Disney was an ardent anti-Unionist and refused. While the strikers and the corporate office eventually came to a negotiation, Babbit resigned and Disney considered him a traitor to the end of his life.




The strike and Disney's mistrust of some of his employees created a fear of Communism in him. Disney was a “friendly witness” to the House of Un-American Activities and wasn't above naming names based on nothing more than mere speculation. Unfortunately Disney's staunch anti-Union and anti-Communism stance as well as the images in some of his works (such as Jim Crow in Dumbo, the Big Bad Wolf impersonating a Jewish peddler in the Three Little Pigs, and the movie, The Song of the South which had been so criticized by the NAACP and other groups that Walt Disney Studios still refuses to re-release it in any form) led to accusations that Disney was both racist and anti-Semitic, accusations that Gabler dismissed.

Gabler cited that Disney hired both Jewish and African-American employees and had close friends that were both. At most Gabler writes that Disney could have been guilty of being “racially insensitive” as so many people in Hollywood were at the time by using stereotypical characters for cheap laughs and making inappropriate remarks. Another proof of Disney not being anti-Semitic Gabler believes could also be seen in his other works particularly the World War II propaganda cartoons. The darkest one (among the darkest animated works the Disney company produced even to this day), Education for Death comes down hard on Nazi anti-Semitic policies by depicting a young Aryan boy destroying others and ultimately bringing about his own destruction because of them.




Gabler also explored how the public persona of Walt Disney as the warm family-friendly benevolent creator and works was both a virtue and a prison to him and his company. This even started at the beginning with Mickey Mouse. In the original shorts, Mickey was a mischievous troublemaker who often played pranks on his adversaries. However as his popularity grew, Mickey shifted towards a heroic nice guy making him seem dull and bland in comparison to his colleagues the temperamental Donald Duck and the clumsy Goofy. Donald even eclipsed Mickey in popularity because audience found his flaws more relateable rather than Mickey's goody-two-shoes character. (In fact one of Mickey’s most popular cartoons The Sorcerer's Apprentice shows Mickey reverting back to his more mischievous persona by using magic to make a broom come to life and gather water to disastrous results.)




Walt Disney himself would suffer from the strain of maintaining a clean cut personality that he had honed by the 1960’s. This personality and his desire to churn out wholesome family films became a straightjacket that he couldn't quite break free from.

By the 1950’s, Disney's cartoons were no longer daring or original despite or perhaps because he also created Disneyland (which Gabler considered Disney's escape of all escapes.) and such shows as Davy Crockett and the Mickey Mouse Club. Disney instead seemed corny, stodgy, and emblematic of the safe middle-class America. Instead during that time the true animation innovators came out of Hanna-Barbera with Tom and Jerry, Warner Bros. With Loony Tunes, and Dr. Seuss with Gerald McBoing Boing, all of which claimed Academy Awards for Animated Short Subjects (which used to be a lock for Disney and his crew.). According to Gabler, when Disney saw To Kill a Mockingbird, he reacted with envy saying, “We should have done that.” However, he knew that the image that he created for the people would never permit him to make a dramatic film about rape and racial tension. It wasn't until Disney released Mary Poppins in 1964 and made plans for his EPCOT, community of tomorrow (which became Walt Disney World) that Walt Disney retained some of that original magical spark that had eluded him when he became formulaic.




Even though Disney died in 1967, his company still continues to be both loved and loathed by many. Those who say that the company deviated from Disney's vision (or saying he is rolling in his grave or would be upset) are missing the point. The company that Walt Disney left behind is just like he was. They are innovative in style but with conventional storylines. They are wish-fulfillment and formulaic. They are creative in giving us memorable characters and commercial by throwing merchandise at us. They are unafraid to be different by coming to television, creating adult films, adding new facets to the company, shifting from traditional to computer generation, and are willing to adapt for the subsequent generations, but they also peddle in escape and entertainment. They are and have always been exactly what Walt Disney wanted them to be.