The Westing Game
Ellen Raskin
Sixteen people, most of them strangers, are invited to play
the Westing Game: figure out which of them is a murderer to win an inheritance
worth millions. Through blizzards, bombs, clues, and trickery, each pair of
heirs must figure out who killed Sam Westing. Over the course of the mystery,
little bits of information about each heir are revealed that indicate their
relationship to the deceased.
At first, this seems like a fairly straight forward
“whodunit” which could be used to introduce a mystery genre unit (followed by
Sherlock Holmes stories or others) for 6th-8th graders.
From the perspective of a college student, I could even suggest reading this
more in-depth in high school—i.e. addressing Post-Colonialism (the Chinese
family, the Oriental rug on which Westing’s body was found, etc.) Raskin’s
story is an easy read that engages the audience within the first couple of
chapters. This novel lends itself well to the RT strategies (especially
prediction) because students may not catch every clue and can help each other
reach the final answer.
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