An Enduring Classic: The Westing Game
Review by Dr. Jerry Flack
The Westing Game is one of the all-time favorite Newbery Medal-winning books. Originally published in 1978, Ellen Raskin’s final book is a novel of delight that should be introduced to each new generation of readers. The Westing Game is much more than a mystery novel. It is a puzzle, a word mystifier, a game to be played, and a work of fiction filled with delightfully eccentric characters of multiple disguises, aliases, and even at least one case of mistaken identity. One of the particularly relevant features of this classic work of juvenile fiction is the presence of four highly gifted teens among the cast of unlikely game players. Raskin includes some of her personal loves such as playing the stock market, the game of chess, and celebrating her hometown of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Raskin’s whodunit begins with the delivery of six letters of invitation to both individuals and families to take up residency in Sunset Towers, a brand new, five-story, luxury apartment construction chiefly made of glass that offers stunning views of Lake Michigan and the Wisconsin shoreline. The elegant Sunset Towers neither faces the sunset nor has any towers. The first tenants of the exclusive Sunset Towers occupy the second through fourth floors. The first-floor lobby is reserved for a physician’s office and a coffee shop. The fifth floor is set-aside for a premier restaurant. The Sunset Towers opens for occupancy on September first. Rankin’s tenants are very diverse. Multiple races, ages, and the status of work among adult characters is pluralistic. The new residents also include a bookie, a burglar, a bomber, and perhaps even a murderer.
The only structure visible from Sunset Towers is the supposedly vacant mansion of the late Samuel W. Westing, the founder of Westing Paper Products Corporation. The Westing mansion is accompanied with a large NO TRESPASSING sign. On a dare, the youngest inhabitant of Sunset Towers, Tabitha-Ruth “Turtle” Wexler, enters the Westing house on Halloween evening and discovers the presumably fatal remains of Sam Westing. Shortly thereafter, letters are delivered to 16 heirs inviting them to the mansion to hear a formal reading of Samuel W. Westing’s unusual will. At the gathering, a novice attorney, Edgar Jennings Plum, reads the only copy of the late millionaire’s will that also functions as a puzzle and a game, the Westing game.
The game identifies the 16 players who are divided into 8 pairs. Each pair receives a check for $10,000 to be divided equally. Each pair also receives a set of clues (four to five words or letters) that are exclusive to them. No two sets of clues are alike. The seemingly random clues are the keys to the object of the Westing game which is to win the whole of Westing’s vast estate that is valued in excess of two hundred million dollars.
There appears to be no special logic for the pairing of Westing’s 16 heirs. Four gifted youths are paired with adults and each other. Domestics and high-profile professional adults are paired without any particular reason. The word clues baffle the players. Turtle and her dressmaker partner, Flora Baumbach, receive SEA MOUNTAIN AM and O as their clues. Word play surfaces with at least one of the clues of game teammates, Doug Hoo and Theo Theodorakis. Their clues are the words and letter HIS N ON TO THEE FOR. As they read their clues they have to determine if the third clue should be read as ON or NO.
The four gifted teen players include Christos “Chris” Theodorakis, who suffers severe disabilities of movement and speech. He is an accomplished bird watcher. His protector and older brother, Theo, is a gifted writer. Doug Hoo is an all-state track and field athlete. Turtle Wexler, the youngest character, is the most savvy stock market investor of all the Sunset Towers residents.
As the eight pairs of heirs attempt to solve the Westing game, the residents of the Sunset Towers experience a three-day-long blizzard that leaves them in total isolation and without electrical power. They also suffer thefts of personal possessions and at least three bomb explosions. Some pairs elect to share their clues in hopes of beating others to the solution of the Westing game. With respect to clues, the eight pairs are reminded of a crucial point in the rules for playing the Westing game. It is not what you have, it is what you don’t have that counts.
Raskin, Ellen. The Westing Game. New York: Dutton Children’s Books, 1978. The Boston Globe – Horn Book Award for Fiction, 1978. The Newbery Medal, 1979.
Some players are more concerned with the identities of the players rather than the game’s final outcome. One example is Judge J. J. (Josie-Jo) Ford, an African American jurist, who serves on the Wisconsin State Supreme Court. Her apartment number is the same as her family name: 4D. She is not interested in the fortune to be won by herself and her partner, Alexander “Sandy” McSouthers, the 65-year-old doorman of Sunset Towers. Judge Ford hires a private investigator to research the backgrounds of all the inheritors. What past secrets are some heirs hiding? Berthe Erica Crow is the cleaning woman of Sunset Towers, but she has a dramatic past life and a currently secret and humble labor of love that she shares with her game partner, Otis Amber, the 62-year-old “delivery boy” of Sunset Towers. Which heir is a “mistake”? Who wins the Westing game? Who knows who wins the game?
Rankin fell in love with books at a very young age. Following college graduation from the University of Wisconsin – Madison, she immediately headed for the publishing capital of the world, New York City. She initially was a graphic designer who created the dust jackets for more than 1,000 books. She designed the first edition cover of another Newbery Medal classic, Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time (Farrar, 1962). Even as other children her age loved to play sidewalk games, books mesmerized her. “Books were my escape; books were my friends.” Rankin entered the world of children’s literature by illustrating the works of others. Ironically, there is not a single illustration in The Westing Game. (See Home and School Activities.)
She remembered from her own childhood love of book design features that were child-friendly. The wide page margins invite children to easily hold her book in their smaller hands. She utilized considerable white space and employed typographic variations “to allow young eyes to rest.” Of The Westing Game, she spoke, “I want it to look like a wonderful place to be.”
When accepting the Newbery Medal, Ellen Raskin rejoiced “that all her beloved characters are alive and well and forevermore will be playing the Westing game.”
One of the responsibilities of reviewing mystery fiction is never to include “spoilers” that prevent readers from solving the literary conundrum. Suffice it to note that one of the very best features of Ellen Raskin’s The Westing Game are the final three chapters that serve as an epilogue to move the characters and their personal stories several years into the future. Hopefully, it is not “cheating” to reveal that a special virtue of Ellen Raskin’s prize-winning mystery novel is that she shares interesting facts about the four gifted youths as they move into their adult lives.
Home and School Activities
Read Aloud.
As a family or classroom, read a new chapter each day. After students have heard any given chapter, encourage them to predict the events and character behaviors that will dominate the next chapter.
Invest.
Online biographies note that in real life, Ellen Raskin loved to play the stock market and made a fortune doing so. If there is a singular leading character among the 16 Samuel W. Westing heirs, it is Tabitha-Ruth “Turtle” Wexler. Even at a young age, she reads The Wall Street Journal daily and smartly invests in the stock market. Encourage readers to learn how the stock market works and how investor “play” the market from multiple online resources. Readers can also follow the ups and downs of the stock market in daily newspapers by selecting a particular stock, take a “gamble,” and have an imagined broker invest their $10,000 Westing game starter check. They can then follow their stock during the length of time committed to reading this Newbery mystery novel. One online educational site for beginners is “Investopedia.”
Is a dollar just a dollar?
Despite the fact that The Westing Game was published 44 years ago, it remains primarily timeless in its code-like cleverness. A possible exception may be reader perceptions of the dollar amounts given to and ultimately promised to the heirs of Samuel W. Westing. When the Westing game is first announced, each of eight pairs immediately received $10,000 to spend (with some stipulations) or save. Readers may think that this amount seems paltry by today’s standards. But, they need to determine how inflation over the past 44 years has altered dollar values. Using multiple online resources, today’s readers learn that a sum of $10,000 in 1978 would be worth the equivalent of $76,332.73 today. Using such Internet resources as <www.dollartimes.com>, assign readers to calculate the value of the Westing game’s crowning top prize of two hundred million dollars (circa 1978) in today’s currency.
Be an architect.
Despite Ellen Raskin’s careers as a graphic designer and children’s book illustrator, there are no illustrations in The Westing Game. Two buildings, Sunset Towers and the Westing mansion, are well described in the mystery novel. Invite students to draw sketches of both the exterior and interior images of these key edifices. The Sunset Towers consists of five separate and distinctive floors with huge picture windows that overlook Lake Michigan. Invite future architects to showcase the unique design of each level.
Character Analysis.
Ellen Rankin was a master storyteller who created some of the most memorable characters in children’s literature. Invite creative and gifted readers to choose their favorite character chosen to play the Westing game. What makes this character particularly appealing? Based on the text descriptions, ask readers to sketch a portrait of their choice character. Why did Ellen Raskin assign highly improbable partners in the eight pairs chosen to play the Westing game? For example, what possible reason prevails to link Madame Sun Lin Hoo with Jake Wexler as Pair One? Sydelle Pulaski is the one character that is a mistaken heir. Some readers might describe this “mistake” as being advantageous. Write a profile of Ms. Pulaski that reveals virtues she brings to the mystery novel. If one character can be a case of mistaken identity, then the possibility for other errors exists. Invite creative writers (like Theo Theodorakis) to substitute a brand new heir crafted in their imagination to play the Westing game. Describe and create a brand new character for a forthcoming cinematic adaptation of The Westing Game.
