This is the one every other book on this shelf is descended from. Roger Price and Leonard Stern invented the game; this is the volume that carries the number one.

The idea has never needed improving. Someone asks for a part of speech, a verb, a noun, an adjective, an adverb, and the book includes definitions and examples in case anyone at the table has gone rusty. Players shout out answers with no idea what they are feeding. The blanks get filled. Then the story is read aloud and reels from one ridiculous sentence to the next until it collapses entirely, which is the whole point.

Twenty one stories, graded by the publisher for ages 8 to 12. Buy it for a child, then quietly discover it works just as well on adults who claim they are too old for this.