The Westing Game

The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin is a novel about a group of people who are selected to live in an apartment complex. These families soon find out after the death of their mysterious neighbor that they have been named his heirs, but in order to collect their money they must play a game. They are paired off, given a set of clues, and are told to solve the mystery that the clues present. The novel follows each pair as they attempt to answer the questions posed to them as well as sort out some strange happenings that are going on at the apartment building.

I thought that this was an excellent novel to read with middle school students. There are many activities that you could assign that could relate to foreshadowing and predictions. It would also be an excellent novel to teach with the reciprocal teaching method. It is a good novel for any grade in middle school, and is interesting enough to be able to keep a reader's attention. My only criticism of the novel is that the multicultural aspects of it are few. The occupants of the apartment are comprised of people of different races, but the novel doesn't go into their cultures at all. Despite that though, I think it would be a really fun novel to read in class.