It’s this interactive quality that I’m finding so addictive. At times, these clues are almost set out like an instruction manual for a game, so we, as the readers, are also playing along.

All 16 are then thrown into the Westing Game where each must solve clues pertaining to the identity of the murderer. The story follows 16 people (a mixture of children, teenagers, and adults) as they listen to the reading of Sam Westing’s will and discover that one of them is a murderer. Though I think children 10 and older would grasp the deeper meanings in this book, and YA readers certainly will. It will give great satisfaction to adult readers who may be reading it aloud to children, as they’ll understand the more complex themes in it that younger children may not. It’s recommended for ages 10 and upward, and I have since learnt it's taught widely in US schools, but as a UK reader, I hadn't heard of this book at all-and here it often seems only to be taught to adults as an example of how children’s stories should be as complex as adult stories, as obviously you shouldn’t “write down” to children. I actually googled the book to see if it’s taught to children at schools (or just used for degree level courses) because of this almost stream-of-consciousness style and complexity, with so many beautiful nuanced layers.

It’s one of the children’s titles for my postgrad creative writing course, but it reminded me so much of Virginia Woolf’s style. As I was reading it, I kept forgetting it’s a novel as it seemed more like a puzzle, and the writing style is just amazing. I could not stop reading this book! THE WESTING GAME by Ellen Raskin is a phenomenal mystery, and I’m actually in awe of how good it is.

The westing game puffin modern classics