School Library Journal Starred Review (Wed Apr 01 00:00:00 CDT 2009)

Gr 6-10 The drama of Poe's tortured life unfolds in accessible prose. Textual information is interspersed with photos, artistic interpretations, and revealing quotations presented in script. Though not as extensive in scope as Milton Meltzer's Edgar Allan Poe (21st Century, 2003) or Tristan Boyer Binns's Edgar Allan Poe: Master of Suspense (Watts, 2005), this volume offers a fairly complete and thoroughly readable description of Poe's life and his importance to literature. His writing is shown to have grown from his troubled, largely dark, lifetime experiences and the constant longing for connection and love. In addition to his creative writing, Lange discusses popular psychological interpretations of Poe's work and credits him with creating new literary genres such as the detective story and the horror story. The book's brevity and format render it a good addition for reports and background for an author study. Renee Steinberg, formerly at Fieldstone Middle School, Montvale, NJ

ALA Booklist (Wed Apr 01 00:00:00 CDT 2009)

This very readable biography introduces Edgar Allan Poe. Effectively orphaned before the age of two by his father's abandonment and his mother's death, Poe was taken in by a foster family and educated well. As an adult, he lived in poverty and struggled with alcoholism and emotional instability, but wrote well-crafted, original stories and poems that profoundly affected those who followed him, particularly mystery and horror writers. Illustrated with many period photographs as well as pictures of Poe-related places and artifacts, the book has varied, spacious page layouts in which shades of turquoise add color to some of the illustrations and backgrounds. The jacket art, which features a photo of Poe's face, overlaid with lines of manuscript, peering outward with haunted eyes, will draw both fans of Poe and a new audience. A chronology and lists of quote sources, books, articles, Internet sites, and historical sites conclude this handsome introduction to an American original.

Horn Book (Wed Apr 01 00:00:00 CDT 2009)

Ida May has so much fun with her new best friend, Stacey. They even form a secret club after finding a mermaid night-light they think grants wishes. But when Stacey begins to stretch the truth with her "imagining," it puts Ida May in a tough position. Though didacticism creeps in, the story sensitively describes the push and pull of fourth-grade friendships.

Voice of Youth Advocates

Despite the photos and prints that illuminate every double-page spread, this volumeÆs strength is its thoughtful discussion of PoeÆs life rather than the collection of often staid images enlivened primarily by turquoise tinting that support it. LangeÆs emphasis on the many tragedies that shaped PoeÆs short life as well as upon the historical and cultural elements that influenced his society gives readers a vivid sense of his struggles. Lange explores PoeÆs generally less-remembered work editing magazines and writing sharp-toned literary reviews and emphasizes the various genres with which Poe experimented, including science fiction, detective tales, poetry, short stories, a novel, and a long essay. Rather than summarizing these texts, though, Lange focuses on thoughtful parallels between PoeÆs subjects and the losses he experienced as well as those troubles common in society, such as tragic deaths from waves of epidemics and high urban crime rates. Most interesting is the honest and empathetic tone of the book that describes PoeÆs life as an unstable balance between a deep longing for family connections and many self-destructive personal choices, including alcoholism and suicide attempts. Lange also points out the ways Poe was victimized by publishers who preferred to pilfer British works rather than publish American ones and malicious peers, like his literary executor Griswold, who destroyed PoeÆs reputation following the famous and troubled writerÆs mysterious death. LangeÆs volume demonstrates that PoeÆs own tale is a worthy competitor with any of the stories he wrote.ùMegan Lynn Isaac.