When Edmund arrives back at the room, he finds his sister is missing! Where could she have gone? The door is still locked and she knew not to leave the world.

A man in a long black army coat, with a pale complexion and dark hair and mustache. While out he finds he is being followed by a man. Perhaps she had finally found their mother? No food, heat or word where she had gone. She told them to stay in the room till she came back. Aunty has left him and his sister alone in the single windowed tenement room for two days.

( )Įdmund has run out for just a short bit to get something to eat. Though the book was a bit of a disappointment, it was still a good opportunity to share a literary experience with my wife and daughter. I will be very interested to hear what my daughter thinks of Poe after she finishes the book with her class. Poe is such an unsympathetic character in the book, that if this was my first exposure to him as a seventh grader, then I don't know that I would want to read anything by him. If Avi wrote The Man Who Was Poe to get readers interested interested in Edgar Allen Poe, I'm not sure he didn't do the opposite and drive them away. Poe's literary background makes almost no appearance in the novel, wasting a prime chance to introduce young readers to classics like 'The Raven,' 'The Tell-tale Heart,' 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue,' and 'The Fall of the House of Usher.' He could just as well have created a fictional character to try and help Edmund. I'm not sure why Avi even chose to make Poe the detective in this mystery story. My main problem with the book is its portrayal of Poe as an alcoholic writer so obsessed with his story that he cared nothing for helping the boy Edmunds find his family except that it gave him material for a good story. From the boy's squalid hotel room to the nighttime graveyard scenes, the setting is appropriate to a book starring Poe. Still, Avi creates a suitably gloomy, gritty, and dark atmosphere. It has its cliffhanger moments and even a twist or two, but it is definitely not up to par with the recent Agatha Christie books I've read this year. The mystery itself is intriguing and well told, especially for middle school readers-the target audience for the novel. The story takes place in Providence, Rhode Island in 1848, when Edgar Allen Poe is reluctantly drawn into helping a young boy find his missing mother, sister, and aunt. Plus, I find Poe a fascinating writer and I was looking forward to seeing him as a character in historical fiction. My daughter's seventh grade class is reading it together, and my wife and I wanted to share the experience with her. I recently took a detour from my 2017 Reading Challenges to read The Man Who Was Poe by Avi.