{"id":28527,"date":"2019-02-13T07:30:39","date_gmt":"2019-02-13T12:30:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=28527"},"modified":"2019-02-13T07:30:39","modified_gmt":"2019-02-13T12:30:39","slug":"hooks-lines-and-no-sinkers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=28527","title":{"rendered":"Hooks, Lines, and No Sinkers"},"content":{"rendered":"

The opening\u00a0sentences\u00a0of a book, like the first moments of a movie, set the stage for\u00a0the\u00a0story. First lines create expectations in readers, and the best storytellers use them to make a promise to us about the experience we are about to have. They set the tone for the entire book\u2014not an easy undertaking. Because first lines are so important, and so challenging to do well, and so much fun to read, I scour ARCs (advance reading copies) every year looking for great openers. I’ve been doing this fairly regularly since 2010, and wow, have there been some incredible first lines! (I usually quote M.T Anderson’s in these annual great-first-line posts, because he is the undisputed master of first lines, but\u00a0I shouldn’t\u00a0repeat myself, so you can read some of his\u2014along with other doozies)\u00a0here.<\/a>)
\nWhat follows are opening lines\u00a0from books from\u00a0winter and spring of 2019. (Please note: almost all of these are taken from ARCs. If you authors have revised these lines for the finished books, please contact me\u00a0so I can edit. Here are the best first lines I’ve discovered so far:
\nTELL ME A STORY
\nIn the beginning, there were two brother-gods: the God of Salt, and the God of Sun.
\n\u2014We Set the Dark on Fire<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0by Tehlor Kay Mejia (HarperCollins\/Katherine Tegen)
\nIt is said that long, long ago, there lived a princess in an underground realm, where neither lies mor pain exist, who dreamt of the human world.
\n\u2014Pan\u2019s Labyrinth: The Labyrinth of the Faun<\/em><\/strong> by Guillermo del Toro and Cornelia Funke (HarperCollins\/Katherine Tegen)
\nHe says his familial name is Niu.
\nAnd his personal name is Hisachi.
\nHe has dimples, like the boy that I knew.
\nWe stand before the Great Gate of Complete Centrality and Perfect Uprightness at the entrance to Pearl Famous Academy of Skate and Sword.
\n\u2014Peasprout Chen: Battle of Champions<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0by Henry Lien (Henry Holt)
\nOKAY, YOU’VE GOT MY ATTENTION
\nI might have to kill somebody tonight.
\n\u2014On the Come Up<\/em><\/strong> by Angie Thomas (HarperCollins\/Balzer + Bray)
\nI was born in the upstairs room of an ancient roadside tavern, a group of common whores acting as midwives.
\n\u2014Courting Darkness<\/em><\/strong> by Robin LaFevers (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
\nMy face is mashed sideways against the trunk of a police cruiser when Kate dies for the third time.
\n\u2014Opposite of Always<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0by Justin A. Reynolds (HarperCollins\/Katherine Tegen)
\nI have not cast a shadow in two months, three days, and eleven hours.
\n\u2014Comet Rising<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0by MarcyKate Connolly (Sourcebooks Jabberwocky)
\nThe first time the Demon Queen appeared in my bedroom, I tried to decapitate her with my solar system night-light.
\n\u2014Game of Stars\u00a0(Kiranmala and the Kingdom Beyond #2)<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0by Sayantani Dasgupta (Scholastic Press)
\nThe trouble began when a giant purple armadillo ran onto the field behind Clay Elementary School.
\n\u2014The Big Idea Gang: Worst Mascot Ever<\/strong><\/em> by James Preller (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
\n“Your face is falling off.”
\n\u2014Fame, Fate, and the First Kiss<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0by Kasie West (HarperTeen)
\nYIKES!
\nThe whole naked selfie situation started on the first day of Higher Ground\u2019s Teen Beach Retreat, during the closing prayer of the opening assembly.
\n\u2014from “Girl, Stop Playing<\/em><\/strong>\u201d by Liara Tamani in Black Enough: Stories of Being Young & Black in America<\/em><\/strong>, edited by Ibi Zoboi (HarperCollins\/Balzer + Bray)
\nPa was taking too long to cut the boys\u2019 throats.
\n\u2014The Merciful Crow<\/em><\/strong> by Margaret Owen (Henry Holt)
\nPLACES YOU DON’T WANT TO BE
\nThis is how I feel every single day of my life, like I’m falling without a parachute.
\n\u2014New Kid<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0by Jerry Craft (HarperCollins)
\nWe were not prepared for it–
\nAmerica, the land cut like a massive slab
\nof steak. Our mother did not sit us down
\nto explain, and nothing was said
\nover the black coffee and rice
\nsoup at mealtimes. My siblings and I approached
\nour inevitable leaving with numb
\nacceptance, as people do under martial law.
\n\u2014from “Departure: July 30, 1984<\/em><\/strong>” by Joseph O, Legaspi in\u00a0Ink Knows No Borders: Poems of the Immigrant and Refugee Experience<\/em><\/strong>, edited by Patrice Vecchione and Alyssa Raymond (Triangle Square)
\nMy laboratory reeks of death. Not of blood and flesh and decay, but the garlicky bite of arsenic, the musty essence of hemlock, and sweet-smelling oleander\u2014like rose water and citrus. The lethal perfume tickles my nose as I rush about the hearth, stoking the fire and whisking the steaming concoction in my cast-iron kettle.
\nToday I will kill a man.
\n\u2014An Affair of Poisons<\/em><\/strong> by Addie Thorley (Page Street )
\nThe wraith crept through the darkness of its forest prison, hunger gnawing at its bones. It was skeletal now, brushing against the thron ferns and moss-covered tree bark with bony fingers that rattled in the breeze.
\n\u2014The Blood Spell<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0by C.J. Redwine (HarperCollins\/Balzer + Bray)
\nSometimes people disappear. One minute they\u2019re there, then poof<\/em>, like a magic trick, they\u2019re gone.
\nOn that first Saturday after we moved to Fortin, Vermont, when I watched my mom get handcuffed and placed in the back of a police cruiser, that\u2019s what I thought about.
\n\u2014Ruby in the Sky <\/em><\/strong>by Jeanne Zulick Ferruolo (FSG)
\nPLACES YOU WANT TO BE (?)
\nAustin<\/strong>
\nIdentifying characteristics:<\/strong> Abundance of food trucks, strip malls, and concert T-shirts worn by grown adults.
\nHabitat:<\/strong> 104 degrees. Generally inhospitable to human life.
\nOther facts:<\/strong> Observed slogan \u201cWelcome to Austin: Please Don\u2019t Move Here.\u201d Hypothesis: environmental insecurity masked as pride.
\n\u2014The Field Guide to the North American Teenager<\/em><\/strong> by Ben Philippe (HarperCollins\/Balzer + Bray)
\nDETAILS
\nYves Rencourt, the chandler’s apprentice, had lost his wig.
\nAfter the last customer left the shop, he searched through baskets of curling wicks and blocks of beeswax and teetering stacks of bills. Rien.
\n\u2014Enchant\u00e9e<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0by Gita Trelease (Flatiron)
\nAnna worked at the cold stone floor of the Tower, using a tool she’d made from the handle of a lantern years before.
\n\u2014Tarot<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0by Marissa Kennerson (Razorbill)
\n“Are you sure this thing is magical?” Dave slowly turned the Crown of the North under the bright basement lights. The seven diamonds adorning the simple silver circlet barely flickered. “It doesn’t look it.”
\n\u2014Spirits, Spells, and Snark<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0by Kelly McCullough (Feiwel and Friends)
\nGETTING TO KNOW YOU
\nI have the most beautiful voice. I use it to say just one thing: Me-ow! Have you ever heard anything so lovely? And it starts with “me!”
\n\u2014Ruff vs. Fluff<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0<\/em>by Spencer Quinn (Scholastic Press)
\nJenny Horowitz likes horses and the color pink and asking lots of questions about things I don\u2019t want to talk about.
\n\u2014Eventown<\/em><\/strong> by Corey Ann Haydu (HarperCollins\/Katherine Tegen)
\nRIGHT DOWN TO IT
\nNo parties, no shorts, no boys. These were my parents\u2019 three cardinal rules.
\n\u2014The Love & Lies of Rukhsana Ali<\/em><\/strong> by Sabina Khan (Scholastic Press)
\nThe earliest thing I can remember is dirt jammed beneath my fingernails.
\n\u2014Right as Rain <\/em><\/strong>by Lindsey Stoddard (Harper)
\nIT’S ALL RELATIVE
\nOnce upon a time, there were two sisters, alike in every way, except for all the ways that they were different.
\n\u2014The Lost Girl<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0by Anne Ursu (Walden Pond)
\nMy little brother is holding my acceptance letter hostage.
\nAnd I\u2019m going to kill him
\n\u2014from “Oreo<\/em><\/strong>\u201d by Brandy Colbert in Black Enough: Stories of Being Young & Black in America<\/em><\/strong>, edited by Ibi Zoboi (HarperCollins\/Balzer + Bray)
\nCharlie O’Reilly was an only child. It therefore made everyone uncomfortable when he talked about his little brother.
\n\u2014The Missing Piece of Charlie O’Reilly<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0by Rebecca K.S. Ansari (Walden Pond)
\nCat always kept her brother in the back of her mind, except for the times he was at the front of it.
\n\u2014Caterpillar Summer<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0by Gillian McDunn (Bloomsbury)
\nWE *ARE* AMUSED
\nI’m allergic to trouble. It makes my hands itch.
\n\u2014A Good Kind of Trouble<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0by Lisa Moore Ramee (HarperCollins\/Balzer + Bray)
\nI’m going to tell you a secret: being a troubadour kind of stinks.
\n\u2014Max & the Midknights<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0by Lincoln Peirce (Crown)
\nDear Riley (Manic Pixie Dream Boy #0002),
\nAn Author alleged you went off script on your last completed project, your second such infraction.
\n\u2014The Manic Pixie Dream Boy Improvement Project<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0by Lenore Appelhans (Carolrhoda Lab)
\nBURYING THE LEAD
\nBailey Buckleby sat behind the register in the front room while his father fed the monsters in the back.
\n\u2014The Monster Catcher<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0<\/em>by George Brewington (Henry Holt)
\nEVOCATIVE
\nOur mother had a dark heart feeling. It was as big as the sky kept inside a thimble.
\n\u2014Lenny’s Book of Everything<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0by Karen Foxlee (Knopf)
\nThere’s no such thing as true black.
\nThis is one of the very first art lessons. Squeezing black ready-made from a tube makes a painting look artificial, so instead, you mix the three primary hues: red, yellow, and blue. Because even the darkest shadow or deepest sorrow has a glimmer of color at its heart.
\n\u2014How to Be Luminous<\/em><\/strong>, by Harriet Reuter Hapgood (Roaring Brook)
\nOnce there was a girl brave enough to draw a question mark in the dust that covered her heart.
\n\u2014Over the Moon<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0by Natalie Lloyd (Scholastic Press)
\nTen million light years from now
\nbathed in the radiation of a time without time
\nare the bones of a girl who loved Ryann Bird
\n\u2014The Weight of Stars<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0by K. Ancrum (Imprint)
\nTHE ORDINARY IN THE EXTRAORDINARY
\nZero-gravity dodgeball three times since Tuesday. So you\u00a0know<\/em>\u00a0it’s the end of the year.
\n\u2014Seventh Grade vs. The Galaxy<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0by Joshua S. Levy (Carolrhoda)
\nJust minutes before the attack in Washington, D.C,. Fort’s father was embarrassing him at the Lincoln Memorial.
\n\u2014The Revenge of Magic<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0by James Reilly (Aladdin)
\nHUH?
\n“You never took a boring Cambridge in pie school?” Dr. Galloway, my academic adviser, asked.
\n\u2014Meet Me in Outer Space<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0<\/em>by Melinda Grace (Swoon Reads)
\nPULLS NO PUNCHES
\nWhen I wake up, all my friends are dead.
\n\u2014Heroine<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0by Mindy McGinnis (HarperCollins\/Katherine Tegen)
\nMYSTERIOUS
\nNobody knew what made the three of them from Iona Crescent up and walk out of the world.
\n\u2014Other Words for Smoke<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0by Sarah Maria Griffin (Greenwillow)
\nOUCH
\nCrack.<\/em>
\nMy jaw.
\n\u2014Beware the Night<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0<\/em>by Jessika Fleck (Swoon Reads)
\nIRREPRESSIBLE
\nHere are things that I, Bernice Buttman, was awesome at. One: burping the alphabet. Two: blowing up stuff with firecrackers. Three: wearing the teachers and puny kids of Oak Grove Elementary School into nubs.
\n\u2014Bernice Buttman, Model Citizen<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0by Niki Lenz (Random House)
\nThere is a locket in my heart
\nthat holds all of the questions
\nthat do cartwheels in my mind
\nand gurgle up to the top of my brain
\nlike root beer fizz.
\n\u2014The Moon Within<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0by Aida Salazar (Scholastic\/Arthur A. Levine)
\n\u201cWe\u2019re going to burn this joint down, my ninja! My outfit is fire<\/em>.\u201d We were in Foot Locker and DeMarcus popped his collar in the mirror. A floor mirror. The kind meant for checking your kicks, so he was leaning over real weird to do it. DeMarcus did everything weird.
\n\u2014from “Black. Nerd. Problems<\/em>.<\/strong>\u201d by Lamar Giles in Black Enough: Stories of Being Young & Black in America<\/em><\/strong>, edited by Ibi Zoboi (HarperCollins\/Balzer + Bray)
\nIRRESISTIBLE CHAPTER TITLES<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Nicknames, a Punch in the Nose, and the Death of a Show Chicken Called Kathleen
    \n\u2014A Good Night for Shooting Zombies<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0by Jaco Jacobs, illus. by Jim Tierney (Rock the Boat)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Being Alone in the Dark in a Hole, on Thanksgiving Day, Is Not Much Fun; Or, Oh Well!
    \n\u2014The Size of the Truth<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0by Andrew Smith (Simon & Schuster)
    \nChapter One: The End
    \n\u2014White Rose<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0by Kip Wilson (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt\/Versify)
    \nHELLO, READERS
    \nGreetings, my new friend!
    \nThere’s something you need to know.
    \nBefore I tell you…
    \n[art instructions to the reader, referencing a drawing of an outline of a person] Make hair standing straight up. Add super-wide eyes. Draw mouth like an O. When you’re done, fold this corner up!
    \n[on the other side of the corner] I predict you’ll look just like this when you turn the page and read your fate!
    \n[turn page]
    \nYou are TRAPPED inside this book…
    \n…and this book is the TITANIC!
    \n\u2014Escape This Book! Titanic (Draw Yourself Into and Out of History!)<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0by Bill Doyle, illus. by Sarah Sax & You! (Random House)
    \nHello    [1]<\/a>
    \n    [1]<\/a> It is a pleasure to meet you. Truly. Life as a book is not as easy as one might think. A book waits. A book waits some more. Sometimes a book waits for years. And then one day, a reader much like yourself happens upon it. Plucks the book right off the shelf and opens it up. I am glad you have chosen me.
    \n\u2014The Tragical Tale of Birdie Bloom<\/em><\/strong> by Temre Beltz (HarperCollins)
    \nAND SPECIAL MENTION IN THE \u2018COULD NOT BE MORE POWERFUL OR IMPORTANT TO SAY\u2019 CATEGORY:
    \nThe book you are holding was scheduled to be published in 2017 with full-color portraits of the young people who were interviewed for it. Since that time laws regarding DACA recipients have changed, making it unsafe for many of the participants to reveal their identities. Their images, names, and other identifiers have been withheld to protect the inspiring people who share their stories in these pages.
    \n\u2014We Are Here to Stay: Voices of Undocumented Young Adults<\/em><\/strong>, written and photographed by Susan Kuklin (Candlewick Press)
    \n***
    \nHit me up with some more great\u00a0first lines from January-April 2019 titles! (No fair posting your own, but your admirers are welcome to do it.)
    \n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The best opening lines in 2019 middle grade and YA books, part 1.<\/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-28527","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\/28527","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=28527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28527\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}