Eddie: The Lost Youth of Edgar Allan Poe by Scott Gustafson

Books employing Edgar Allan Poe as a character must always veer off into fantasy. Somehow, this is a modest disappointment, since his real life was so tragic, so real, and so bizarre that it makes excellent fodder for the imagination. Eddie: The Lost Youth of Edgar Allan Poe by Scott Gustafson must go one step further, for better or worse.

As a children's volume, the book seeks to present a heroic Poe. It begins well before Poe's troubles like alcoholism set in, effectively masking the more controversial elements of his life from young minds. This allows the author to reinvent the horror master as he pleases. Surprisingly, though, Gustafson's story does not shirk from horror. His version of the youthful Poe is one who deals in intrigue and the macabre equally.

As a cultural artifact, it's interesting that Eddie: The Lost Youth of Edgar Allan Poe is aimed at children. Too often, Poe is introduced, and then quickly left behind. If there's any conspiracy in American English classrooms today, it's a tendency to avoid dwelling on the bleak prose of scribes like Poe in favor of global diversity with a message that is, in some way, uplifting.

This is a shame, since Poe's brutal realism and morose imagery is truly different, and far more enlivening than many modern contemporaries. Although Gustafson's contribution won't necessarily lead kids to pessimistic, strange horror, it will certainly introduce or re-introduce Poe, and possibly lead to a greater exploration filled with literary darkness.

-Grim Blogger