Module 2 - The Westing Game

Book Summary

The Westing Game is a mystery novel, about 16 tenants of an apartment building trying to solve who is the culprit of Sam Westing’s demise. At stake, his 200 million dollar fortune. This Newbery Medal winner is sure to have you quickly turn pages anticipating every new clue to find the villain amongst all the characters in this book.

Reference

Raskin, E. (1978). The westing game. New York: Dutton.

Impressions:

The Westing Game is very fun to read. The book has many characters and I appreciated how Raskin introduces them as apartment dwellers, helping me see them in some physical space. Raskin does a great job describing things and spaces with simple adjectives. The book feels like a screenplay written in small sections, one after another, aiming to develop characters and push the story along. From the perspective of a mystery novel, each section leaves the reader with something unresolved, but intriguing enough to keep reading. The puzzle of the book is the layers that Raskin writes into the characters as well as the mystery to solve.

Turtle, a young character and heroine of the novel novel will certainly allow young students to want to read the book. She’s feisty and a great role model for young mystery readers.

Keeping up with all the characters can be difficult and reading the book, chapter by chapter will require a break, here and there, to digest each new development in the 30 chapters. I really appreciated that Raskin thoughtfully used all the characters in the book to solve the puzzle. I would have been frustrated otherwise.

Professional Review:

A supersharp mystery, more a puzzle than a novel, but endowed with a vivid and extensive cast. In the Christie tradition, Raskin isolates a divers group of strangers--the  mysteriously hand-picked tenants of a new apartment building within sight of the  old Westing  mansion--and presents them with the  information that one of them is the  murderer. Actually, it turns out that there is no corpse, but no one is aware of that when they are all assembled for a reading of old Westing's  fiendish will, which pairs them all off and allots each pair four one-word clues to the  murderer's identity. As the  winning pair is to inherit Westing's  fortune, there is much secret conferring, private investigating, far-out scheming, and snitching and scrambling of the  teasing, enigmatic clues. (For example, those of black judge Josie Jo Ford, which she takes for a racial insult, read SKIES AM SHINING BROTHER.) As a result of the  pairings, alliances are made and suspended, and though there is no murderer there is a secret winner--the  pigtailed youngest of the  "heirs"--plus extravagant happy endings for all. As Westing  had warned, all are not what they seem, and you the  reader end up liking them better than you expected to. If Raskin's crazy ingenuity has threatened to run away with her on previous occasions, here the  complicated game  is always perfectly meshed with character and story. Confoundingly clever, and very funny.

THE WESTING GAME. (1978). Kirkus Reviews. Retrieved from https://libproxy.library.unt.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/916900507?accountid=7113

Library Uses:

Grades 5-12: The book serves as a brilliant example of the mystery genre and would allow librarians to discuss the elements of mystery fiction, all present in this novel. The book is also an opportunity to talk about lying, since the reader is challenged to determine who is telling the truth. Since the book was written in 1979, there are opportunities to teach vocabulary words, by chapter. The book is perfect for character analysis exercises and activities, with plenty of choices for a class to choose from.

Module 1: The Plot Chickens

Book Summary

The Plot Chickens is the story of Henrietta, a chicken that writes a book that no one will publish. Using literary elements found in a writing guidebook, Henrietta develops her story with the help of her friends. Eventually, Henrietta finds a way to share her story, and finds that one bad review can't stop a good book from finding an adoring audience.

Reference

Auch, M. J., & Auch, H. (2009). The plot chickens (1st ed.). New York, NY: Holiday House.

Impressions:

The Plot Thickens is a great children's picture book to help students understand the important elements of a good story. The book's humor seems aimed towards writers and audiences much older than children but the ending will provide a strong laugh from younger readers.

• Visual 

The illustrators drawing of the characters' eyes gave some heartfelt personality to Henrietta and the Librarian. The visuals accurately reflected the text on page and in some cases did an excellent job of developing the story between dialogue in speech bubbles and Henrietta the Chickens typewritten text. The use of bold words to highlight adjectives and descriptive language to reinforce the rules of writing.

• Text

The story does a great job of unfolding the rules of writing without becoming too technical for early readers. The use of humor is egg-cellent. The story also reflects the tenacity of the main character in trying to create a book even after rejection and self-doubt.

Professional Review:

K-Gr 2 --Henrietta the chicken, star of Souperchicken (Holiday House, 2003), is an avid library user and decides that because reading is so much fun, "writing books must be eggshilarating." She finds a manual of writing rules and creates her own story-with the unsolicited help of the other fowl. When it is rejected by a publisher, Henrietta decides to self-publish. She takes a copy to her librarian, who tells her to send it to The Corn Book Magazine for review. Henrietta gets another rejection: "odoriferous." Then she wanders into the library at storytime and sees that her book was chosen best of the year by the children. Henrietta is asked to read it aloud. "She read with dramatic expression. Of course, all the children heard was BUK, BUK, BUK...." The illustrations, a combination of oil paints and digital technology, are bold and colorful. The pictures are busy, with Henrietta at her typewriter while her friends cavort around her. There are imagined scenes in cloud shapes, word balloons, and jokes aplenty. A droll chicken with a repeating line adds to the humor. This offering works on two levels. It's a funny picture book that could be used as a manual on writing.

Bates, I. (2009). The Plot Chickens. School Library Journal, 55(3), 105.

Library Uses:

Grades 3-6: The Plot Thickens should be used as a resource when beginning the writing process with young students. The book can also serve as a great resource for teaching strategies involving prediction. The book has plenty of examples of humorous play on words involving the word egg.