The Westing Game was my first Newbery Challenge book. This book won the prize in 1978 and according to all sources is hugely popular. Perhaps I'm in the wrong demographic (and, of course, I am) but I did not get it. I didn't find it interesting. The mystery was confusing. There were clues, but they didn't really lead to an answer. Perhaps I didn't spend enough time sorting them out and keeping notes, maybe if I had I would have be enthralled and amazed. As it was, I didn't like it. I didn't care who won and I found all the characters annoying. I didn't feel like there was any danger to the character who was in danger. Just eh.
Here's the publisher's summary, if you're still interested:
For over twenty-five years, Ellen Raskin's Newbery Medal-winning The WestingGame
has been an enduring favorite. It has sold over one and a half million copies.
This highly inventive mystery involves sixteen people who are invited to the
reading of Samuel W. Westing's will. They could become millionaires-it all
depends on how they play the tricky and dangerous Westing game, a game involving
blizzards, burglaries, and bombings! Ellen Raskin has created a remarkable cast
of characters in a puzzle-knotted, word-twisting plot filled with humor,
intrigue, and suspense.
NOLADawn gave me an interesting link to this site, where you can see actual manuscript pages. That's more interesting than the book was, I think!
This is my first Newbery Challenge and my second By the Decades Challenge book.
We teach this book with our 5th and 6th graders, so to them it is more intricate. We keep notes on what is going on and such, that makes it more fun. Sorry you didn't enjoy it. The manuscript pages are really interesting to the kids because they see that writers don't just sit down and write, they go through a lot... down to names and everything.
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