{"id":17874,"date":"2016-02-02T09:00:46","date_gmt":"2016-02-02T14:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=17874"},"modified":"2016-02-02T09:00:46","modified_gmt":"2016-02-02T14:00:46","slug":"worst-first-line-winners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=17874","title":{"rendered":"Worst First Line Winners!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ah, ShelfTalker readers, you have been so patient awaiting the results of the Worst First Line contest. But see how many wonderful extra posts by Kenny and Josie you’ve gotten to read while checking the site for the spoils of victory? We feel that the\u00a0capricious\u00a0nature of our announcement date adds a little je ne sais\u00a0quoi<\/em> to the award proceedings.
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\nTo refresh your memories, the original contest post and everyone’s entries can be found here<\/a>. Winners were chosen by an argumentative committee of Flying Pig folks.
\nHere’s how this works. The winners in each category will email me\u00a0(Elizabeth) at FlyingPigEvents @ \u00a0gmail \u00a0.com, requesting the current ARC of their dreams, except for the new Kate DiCamillo book, Raymie Nightingale<\/em>, which will only go to the Grand Prize Winner. (In the unlikely event that we don’t have the ARC you request or can’t get it for you, we will send you another choice. Don’t worry; there are lots of amazing ARCs in our world\u00a0right now!) Drum roll, please….<\/p>\n

Picture Book Winner:\u00a0Jennifer Congdon<\/strong>
\nThe mean bus driver cried and cried when she hit the neighbors dog and she seemed less scary when she cried, but the dog is dead.<\/em>
\nPicture Book Honorable Mention\u00a0(Gertrude Stein Award):\u00a0Rosemary Basham<\/strong>
\nTha-lump! Tha-lump! Tha-lump! Tha-lump! On a fine clear day a hump of a stump went bump! Then Lump-Tha! Lump-Tha! Lump-Tha! It jiggered and jaggered and swaggered to and fro\u2013OH! NO! Where did it even go? We don\u2019t know so onward with the stump in tow, for all to know, is still.<\/em>
\nEarly Reader Winner:\u00a0Carol Riggs<\/strong>
\nTypically extremely loquacious by nature, Chauncey discovered to his absolute astonishment and consternation that his canine companion, Morgenstern, had vanished without so much as a trace, which rendered him for the moment profoundly and heartbreakingly silent.<\/em>
\nMiddle Grade Winner:\u00a0Karen Boss<\/strong>
\nIt was 1987, December, and almost time for winter break from school when Skeet first told a girl he liked her, but Rachel hadn\u2019t seemed happy about it as she puked on Skeet\u2019s shoes and farted at the same time.<\/em>
\nYoung Adult Winner:\u00a0Susan Chapek<\/strong>
\nIt was a dreary day, and Brisling\u2019s sleep-numbed brain echoed the dreariness as she peered into her mirror, which\u2014as it had recently developed the habit of doing\u2013instead of showing her the mostly unremarkable face of a sixteen-year-old girl (not too smart and not too dumb and yet capable of texting at least one heart-worthy bullet of snark every couple of hours), today reflected a landscape dominated by four stoplight-red zit mountains, one of which was topped with a yellowing snowcap that Brisling ached to pop, all the while knowing that if she did it would either re-form by the time she got to school, or would continue to ooze and drain all day; dying in a half-hearted way to find out which way it would go, she reached for her weapon of choice, the safety pin lying in the pastel dust of powdered eye shadow and blush at the bottom of her cosmetic organizer.<\/em>
\nFirst Book in New Series Winner:\u00a0Anna Smith<\/strong>
\nThe orphaned servant girl woke in the dim light of pre-dawn, back aching and fair hair crusted with ashes, but her head full of dreams; had she glimpsed a glimmer of gold in those last seconds of sleep, and why did her mind keep returning to the mysterious prophecy whose lyrical promises of a long-lost princess she had accidentally overheard the night before?<\/em>
\n(Author\u2019s note: WHY, INDEED.)<\/em>
\nFantasy\/Science Fiction Winner:\u00a0Carol Riggs<\/strong>
\nLittle known amongst the troubled villagers of Wunce-Upon-a-Thyme, a certain glass-half-empty nerd on the edge of town named Clod the Hopper was at that very moment watering the plants in his master\u2019s recreational herb shop, destined to be The One.<\/em>
\nHorror Winner:\u00a0Moshe Waldoks<\/strong>
\nPleasantly plump, the Earl of Hampshire stared at his pudding and moaned aloud, to those who were in hearing range, about the severed finger he found next to the walnuts.<\/em>
\nHorror Honorable Mention\u00a0(for\u00a0Alliterative Allure):\u00a0Christine Henderson<\/strong>
\nDaryl Doggett didn\u2019t liked to be dared \u2013 especially when it was a double-dog dare; you know the kind when some dimwit suggests a daredevil deed that is deliciously demeaning, but even so you can\u2019t deny the desire to do it anyway just to see the deleterious results \u2014 so Daryl dumped the decayed remains of his dearly departed daughter down the water slide for one last dunk in the dank pool water.<\/em>
\nHorror Honorable Mention\u00a0(Humor): Carol Riggs<\/strong>
\nMidge, upon realizing the Jiffy Mart was going to close in five minutes, leaped into her Ford Pinto and screeched down Riviera Drive\u2014only to find when she arrived that Jiffy Mart was ALL OUT OF SNICKERS BARS.<\/em>
\nMishmash of Genres Winner:\u00a0Carol Riggs<\/strong>
\nROMANCE\/MISHMASH: The minute Kacy\u2019s eyes landed on him like a pair of bottleflies to a cow pie, she pegged him for the kind of bad boy her mother had always warned her about\u2014she saw it in his bedroom-lidded eyes, his dangerous Walmart jeans, and the disdainful haircut that simply screamed \u201cEdward Scissorhands.\u201d<\/em>
\n<\/header>\n
And now…. suspense suspense ….<\/header>\n
<\/header>\n
GRAND PRIZE WINNER!<\/strong><\/header>\n


\nFantasy\/Horror\/Picture Book\/Adventure:\u00a0Paul Acampora<\/strong>
\nDragon boys and girls; which are just like regular boys and girls with bagel-sized eyeballs and cyan mottled wings of lovely leather chartreuse, poop too.<\/em>
\nThank you to everyone who participated!! It was so much fun reading your entries.<\/p>\n

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<\/section>\n<\/section>\n<\/header>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In which the winners of our contest are at last announced.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17874\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}