Opening Lines
2012
The U.K.’s Guardian News recently posted the best first lines in fiction. It’s heavy on the classics and got me thinking about the opening lines that stick with me (which don’t tend to be the classics).
My memory is notoriously bad. It’s often tough to remember the storyline much less the first line.
There are only a handful of novels where I could even approximate the opening line — A Prayer for Owen Meany and The Gunslinger come to mind. But the closest I’d get in those two cases is “Um, something about a wrecked voice, a man wearing black and a desert.”
Kids’ books are a whole different story though.
“In the light of a moon, a little egg lay on a leaf.”
“One winter morning Peter woke up and looked out the window.”
“Once there was a tree and she loved a little boy.”
“Fox Socks, Box Knox”
I could keep going, but you get the idea. Like the characters in our PSA, they’re like old friends. They open the floodgates to old memories of my mom reading to me and new memories of me reading to my daughters. And they stick in my forgetful head.
What about you? Any favorite first lines from children’s books that stick with you? Leave a note in the comments below, or share with RIF on Facebook and @RIFweb on Twitter.
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“The time has come.”
Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please Go Now. The first book I learned to read! (OK, maybe the first book I memorized … )
Nice one, Kori … “The time is now. Marvin K. Mooney, will you please go now?” Gotta dig that book up for the kids!
“At the foot of an old, old wharf lives the cutest, silliest little tugboat you ever saw.” From Little Toot by Hardie Gramatky
From my childhood the winner is….”It was the summer of the year when the relatives came.”
From The relatives came
My sons first 2 favorite books…” In the great green room”
From Goodnight Moon
And “Trucks, trucks, trucks! I like trucks”
From I love trucks!
Great picks, Ann. I haven’t read The Relatives Came yet to the girls — adding to our list!
In order of wonderfulness (titles at bottom):
“Where’s Papa going with that axe?’ said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast.
Here I am, Ralph William Mountfield, banished to my bedroom on Christmas Day.
When Old Tip lost his bark, Uncle Trev had to teach his horse to bark and chase the cows up to the shed for milking.
(Titles: Charlotte’s Web; The More the Merrier; Uncle Trev)
“It was a dark and stormy night.”
From A Wrinkle in Time
“In the great green room…” is one of my favorites too. I never tired of reading Goodnight Moon aloud to my kids.
“There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.” (C.S. Lewis, THE VOYAGE OF THE DAWN TREADER