The Poe Estate

Gr 5–8—Sukie is no stranger to the supernatural; in fact, her own sister Kitty is a ghost. So when Sukie moves into her family's ancestral home, she isn't too surprised when another ghost appears and asks her to find a long-lost treasure. Sukie's classmate Cole and her new friends at the New-York Circulating Material Repository are all too happy to help. Together they encounter many dangers including an evil brooch, undead pirates, and a pipe-smoking man named Feathertop. But Sukie knows that Kitty won't let anything harm them, unless, of course, the greatest danger is Kitty herself. Shulman brings new life to classic works of fiction by creating a world in which Nathaniel Hawthorne's House of the Seven Gables and Edgar Allan Poe's gold-bug really exist. Throughout their adventure, Sukie and her friends find creative ways to use such "fictional" materials to their advantage. Narrator Jorjeana Marie creates distinctive voices for the female characters but varies her voice very little with the male characters, possibly causing some confusion for listeners.