There was a great post on a Young Adult Library List Serv about the best first lines of a book to draw the reader in. I'm posting it here because the YALSA group has come up with some good ones. Hopefully they'll make you want to read more!
Catherine, Called Birdy by Karen Cushman
“12th Day of September [1290]. I am commanded to write an account of my days: I am bit by fleas and plagued by family. That is all there is to say.”
Feed by M.T. Anderson
“We went to the moon to have fun, but the moon turned out to completely suck.”
Dreamland by Sarah Dessen
“My sister Cass ran away the morning of my sixteenth birthday. She left my present, wrapped and sitting outside my bedroom door, and stuck a note for my parents under the coffee-maker. None of us heard her leave.”
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
“They murdered him.”
When She Hollers by Cynthia Voigt
“She put the survival knife down on the table. It pointed across at him. She couldn’t breathe.”
Godless by Pete Hautman
“Getting punched in the face is a singular experience. I highly recommend it to anyone who is a little too cocky, obnoxious, or insensitive.”
Shattering Glass by Gail Giles
“Simon Glass was easy to hate. I never knew exactly why, there was too much to pick from. I guess, really, we each hated him for a different reason, but we didn’t realize it until the day we killed him.”
Faerie Wars by Herbie Brennan
“Henry got up early on the day that changed his life.”
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
“If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.”
Inside Out by Terry Trueman
“All I want is a maple bar, but I don’t think these kids with the guns care about what I want.”
Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan
“It was a wild, windy, southwestern spring when the idea of killing [him] occurred to them.”
Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli
“They say [he] was born in a dump. They say his stomach was a cereal box and his heart a sofa spring.”
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
“It was a dark and stormy night.”
Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares
“Once upon a time there was a pair of pants.”
Life in the Fat Lane by Cherie Bennett
"Which would you rather be, fat or dead?"
Spy Goddess: Live & Let Shop by Michael P. Spradlin
“The car I rode in the night I got arrested was really clean. Spotless, almost.”
Dead Girls Don’t Write Letters by Gail Giles
"Things had been getting a little better until I got a letter from my dead sister. That more or less ruined my day."
Rules for Life by Darlene Ryan
"I knew my father had had sex the minute I walked into the kitchen."
The Earth, My Butt, & Other Big Round Things by Carolyn Macklin
"Froggy Welsh the Fourth is trying to get up my shirt."
The Raging Quiet by Sherryl Jordan
"The afternoon Marnie came to Torcurra, the villagers were whipping the devils out of a mad boy."
Cuba 15 by Nancy Osa
"What can be funny about having to stand up in front of everyone you know, in a ruffly dress the color of Pepto-Bismol, and proclaim your womanhood?"
It's Kind of Funny Story by Ned Vizzini
"It's so hard to talk when you want to kill yourself."
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
"It was a pleasure to burn."
Heroes by Robert Cormier
"My name is Francis Joseph Cassavant and I have just returned to Frenchtown in Monument and the war is over and I have no face."
Born to Rock by Gordan Korman
"The thing about a cavity search is this: it has nothing to do with the dentist."
Mercy on these Teenage Chimps by Gary Soto
"I, Ronaldo Gonzales, better known as Ronnie, was like any other boy until I turned thirteen and woke up as a chimpanzee."
Absolutely, Positively Not by David Larochelle
“Everybody has at least one ugly secret, and mine is as ugly as they come. I square dance. With my mother.”
