Tag: Puzzles

How many classic novels can you or your group identify just by the opening lines?

1. “All children, except one, grow up.”
2. “He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone 84 days now without taking a fish.”
3. “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness…”
4. “Serene was a word you could put to Brooklyn, New York.”
5. “Call me Ishamael.”
6. “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.”
7. “Amerigo Bonasera sat in New York Criminal Court Number 3 and waited for justice…”
8. “A throng of bearded men, in sad-coloured garments and gray steeple-crowned hats, intermixed with women, some wearing hoods, and others bareheaded, was assembled in front of a wooden edifice, the door of which was heavily timbered with oak, and studded with iron spikes.”
9. “The cold passed reluctantly from the earth, and the retiring fogs revealed an army stretched out on the hills, resting.”
10. “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

Answers: 1. Peter Pan, JM Barrie, 2. The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway, 3. A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens, 4. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith, 5. Moby Dick, Herman Melville, 6. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen, 7. The Godfather, Mario Puzo, 8. The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne, 9. The Red Badge of Courage, Stephen Crane, 10. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy

Telepathy | Photo via Public Domain Review photostream

In this game you leave the room and while you are gone the group picks an object for you to guess. When you return to the room the game host will ask you a number of questions about items in the room. “Is it the sofa?” “No.” “Is it the clock?” “No.” “Is it Brittany’s hair.” “Yes it is.”

After a couple of rounds – in which you guess the object correctly each time – the group will be pretty well convinced you can read their minds. Or more likely someone will have an idea about how you are making the trick work. If so, send this person out of the room and see if they can reproduce the stunt. Keep it up until everyone figures out how the game works.

How It Works:

Before youth group work out the signal ahead of time. For instance, if the game host points to something red then the next object will be what the room agreed on.

Bonus Extra-Tricky Version

If your group is super-smart or if you want to prolong the agony for some inconceivable reason, change the signal each round. Agree with your game host that the signals will follow a pattern – for instance red-white-and-blue – red on the first round, white on the second round, blue on the third round. Just be sure it’s a pattern you can remember.