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Two books and a game to turn your child into a storyteller -- maybe even get him to write down a story.

The Exquisite Corpse Adventure: A Progressive Story Game Played by 20 Celebrated Authors and Illustrators, Candlewick, $17.99. Get ready to laugh yourself silly, and not just at this story but at all the famous writers who've wriggled in their seats and had a good-natured chuckle while writing it. In this waggish collaboration by 20 top talents in children's books, author Jon Scieszka sets up a wild scenario for a story, then asks fellow authors and illustrators to run with it. With each chapter, a new author-illustrator team picks up the story from where another team left it.  As the teams wrangle with themes that are almost too silly to put together, they seem to be trying to get in a doozy of a cliff-hanger before their chapter ends. It's as if one team is teasing the next, "Now what are you going to do?" Scieszka begins the story with a ticking time bomb (literally), a cliff-hanger that calls for a quick response, not only from the story's heroes but the authors who have to write the heroes out of immediate danger. Here's where the book starts: Two twins have just run away from the circus after receiving a mysterious birthday card from their parents, whom they thought were dead. In the letter, the parents urge twins Nancy and Joe, both 11, to run out into the world and look for clues that will lead them to parts of a top-secret robot, known as "The Exquisite Corpse." But as they get started, the twins find themselves on a train set to explode if it crosses a bridge just up ahead. Thanks to Katherine Patterson they do escape alive, only to learn in Kate DiCamillo's chapter that a clown from their circus set them up and he's juggling another bomb. By the time Susan Cooper takes over the story, the twins are being chased by a dancing pig. Could the circus they've run away from be trying to hunt them down?  Originally published on the READ.gov LIbrary of Congress website, this hilarious experiment might just inspire your kids to start a progressive story of their own.

Tales from the Haunted House (Storyworld, Create a Story Kit), by John & Caitlin Matthews, Templar Books, $9.99, 2011. With Halloween creeping closer, here's a terrific way to tap into your children's imagination: a kit for making up ghoulish stories. Tale from the Haunted House is the fifth entry in a clever game series that gets kids to tell stories without any pressure to do so. Inside each kit is a deck of 28 cards, each with a mood-setting scene on one side and questions about possible plots on

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