Some people select a book just by looking at the cover. Others count
on their friends for a recommendation. Some students like to judge a book
by its first line or first paragraph. Take a look at the intriguing first lines
submitted by teachers and students. Maybe you will find a book you
love! A more extensive list is posted on the Media Center web page and if you
have suggestions for this list of "fabulous first lines" please e-mail them to
me!
•Freak the Mighty by R. Philbrick
" I never had a brain until Freak came along and let me borrow his for a
while, and that’s the truth, the whole truth."
•Island of the Aunts by Eva Ibbotson
"Kidnapping children is not a good idea."
•Belle Prater's Boy by Ruth White
" Around 5:00 a.m. on a warm Sunday in October 1953, my Aunt Belle
left her bed and vanished from the face of the earth."
•A Long Way From Chicago by Richard Peck
"You wouldn't think we would have to leave Chicago to see a dead
body."
•Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli
" They say Maniac Magee was born in a dump."
•Don’t Look Behind You by Lois Duncan
" The world as we knew it ended for us on a Tuesday afternoon in May."
•Love From Your Friend, Hannah by Mindy Warshaw Skolsky
"Dear Edward, I got your name and address from a piece of paper I
picked out of a box that says PEN PALS on a corner of my teacher's desk."
•The Ballad of Lucy Whipple by Karen Cushman
"Summer, 1849 in which I come to California, fall down a hill, and vow to
be miserable here."
•A Day No Pigs Would Die by Richard Peck
" I should have been in school that April Day."
•Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
"It was a pleasure to burn."
•In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson by Bette Bao Lord
"In the Year of the Dog, 4645, there lived halfway across the world from
New York a girl called Sixth Cousin."
•Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt
"The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the
live-long year, like the highest seat of a ferris wheel when it pauses in
its turning."
•On the Devil’s Court by Carl Deuker
" There are two things that I’m ashamed of."
•Plain City by Virginia Hamilton
" You all don’t scare me."
•The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton "
"When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the
movie house, I had only two things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride
home."
•Danger Zone by David Klass
" I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a zone."
•The Moorchild by Eloise McGraw "It was Old Bless, the wise woman of
the village, who first suspected that the baby at her daughter’s house was a
changeling."
Missing May by Cynthia Rylant
" When May died, Ob came back to the trailer, got out of his good suit
and into his regular clothes, then went and sat in the Chevy for the rest of the
night."
•The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
" They murdered him."
•White Fang by Jack London
"Dark spruce forest frowned on either side the frozen waterway."
•In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson, Bette Bao Lord
"In the Year of the Dog, 4645, there lived halfway across the world from
New York a girl called Sixth Cousin."
