The Westing Game

The Westing Game

By Ellen Raskin

Published by Penguin Group (1997)

Reading Level: Ages 11-13 years

Pages: 216

Genre: Mystery

Summary: Several people are invited to live in Sunset Towers, an apartment building by Lake Michigan. They all accept the invitation. One day they see smoke coming from the chimney of the Westing House. Turtle, a little girl that is protective of her braids, goes in the house on a bet and sees Mr. Westing dying in his bead. The tenants find out the next day that Mr. Westing is dead and they are invited to come to the reading of the Will. They learn that they are all related to Mr. Westing somehow and someone from that group took his life. The group is invited to play the Westing Game and find out who. The winner receives $200 million dollars! They are divided into 2 person teams and each team is given different clues. They have to use the clues to figure it out by the next time they are asked to meet. Several of them are snowed in together. Several end up in the hospital from bombings, one of the tenants is stealing items. Each person is paired with the perfect person. When they all finally give their answers they are all wrong and are forced to stay together to figure it out. But they don't figure it out fast enough and someone dies. Then turtle figures it out and doesn't tell anyone. She receives a mentor and the rest of the tenants work through their individual problems and end up happy.

My Reaction: I thought the book was delightful! The author gives you all the clues so that you can try to figure it out along with the characters. And the book stayed interesting, there were no parts that really lagged.

Potential Problems: bombings, death, talk of murder, theft, and use of the word "dastardly"

Recommendations: I would recommend this book to anyone that loves a good mystery story.