Shelly's Book Blog

I started reading The Westing Game, by Ellen Raskin, many months ago but never finished it. At that time, I just could not get interested in the story. I think I read the first few chapers and then gave up.
Since it is a Newbery Medal winner, I decided to try again. Once I got into the book I did enjoy reading it. Keeping all the names and relationships straight is certainly a challenge, though. The mystery the various characters must solve is who murdered Sam Westing. The strange thing about it is that Mr. Westing seems to have predicted his own demise and set up the game beforehand. What keeps the 16 potential heirs playing is the promise of a whopping $200 million inheritance.

This book is written at a 5th-grade reading level, but I would hesitate to recommend it to kids that young because it really is complex. In my copy of the book there is an introduction written by Raskin's publisher, Ann Durrell. Here, I discovered that Raskin never read children's books before she wrote The Westing Game. Durrell notes that she "never even tried to edit her 'for children,'" saying she was "too wise, too funny, too ingenious--and therefore unique--to tamper with in that way." I agree that the book is very clever and funny. For some reason, though, it just didn't catch my interest the way other children's books have.