Sonderbooks Book Review of Witness

Reviewed November 3, 2001.
Scholastic Press. 2001. 161 pages.

I wasn’t crazy about this book, but it was thought-provoking and well-crafted.

The story is set in Vermont in 1924. Two motherless young girls have moved into town. One is black and one is Jewish. Then the Ku Klux Klan starts a group in town.

The story is a collage of many people’s perspectives. She does a good job of helping us keep them straight by opening the book with a page of pictures of all eleven characters. Every page or two is told in someone else’s voice, with the speaker clearly indicated at the top of the page. At the beginning, you can leaf back to the Characters page to keep straight who is speaking.

Of course, it’s a good exercise in seeing through other people’s eyes. It’s interesting, and believable, how the different characters see the same events in different ways. There’s a crime toward the end of the book, and it’s interesting to figure out which one was responsible and why.

Reader comment: One reader gives this book no stars, with the comment, "so BORING!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

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Book Reviews by Sondra Eklund

***Witness*

by Karen Hesse