Writing Kidlit: Favorite First Lines

If you write them, they will come...

A favorite children’s novel - and I discovered it as an adult

If you want to write for kids, first sentences matter.

Kids are like you and I: making snap decisions based on covers and intriguing first lines.

Let’s start with a master storyteller:

“This story begins within the walls of a castle, with the birth of a mouse. A small mouse. The last mouse born to his parents and the only one of his litter to be born alive.”

I am immediately drawn in, worried about this small mouse (and I really dislike mice) - and the mention of a castle.

These lines come from THE TALE OF DESPEREAUX by Kate DiCamillo, who goes on to write,

“Where are my babies?” said the exhausted mother when the ordeal was through. “Show me to my babies.”

The father mouse holds up the baby mouse and the mother sighs, “such a disappointment.” They named the puny rodent Despereaux for all the sadness, for the many despairs in this place.

So lyrical, so tragic! As a child who loved reading the tragic, I’m all in.

The first chapter is short and ends with the prediction that Despereaux is too small and weak and strange looking (those big ears!) to live.

The chapter ends this way:

“But, reader, he did live. This is his story.”

What a start! I turned the page. Then another and another. And it all started with those “fire first lines.”

I asked my middle grade lit pals for examples of favorite first lines. Read them, learn from them…

Izzy watched through a crack in the door as the young ladies in the parlor burst into flame. -The Gilded Girl by Alyssa Colman

I’m pretty sure I’m about to die in space. And I just turned twelve and a half. -One Giant Leap by Ben Gartner

There once was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubs and he almost deserved it. Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis

Sometimes when the kerosene lamp casts shadows, I think I see Ma’s ghost. -The Ballad of Jessie Pearl by Shannon Hitchcock

Not in a million years did Connor Stark think he would be sparring his nemesis, Wyatt. -Connor and the Taekwondo Tournament (Book 3: The infinity Rainbow Club) by Jen Malia 

Look, I didn’t want to be a half-blood. -The Lightning Thief (Book 1: Percy Jackson and the Olympians) by From Rick Riordan

Dare Coates was an awful girl. Everyone on Barrow’s Bay said so. -Between Monsters and Marvels by Alysa Wishingrad

On the morning I was scheduled to die, a large barefoot man with a bushy red beard waddled past my house. -The Colossus Rises by Peter Lerangis

Overcooked eggs look like exploded eyeballs. -The No Brainer’s Guide to Decomposition by Adrianna Cuevas Henderson

Are you there God? It's me Margaret. -Judy Blume

Before I know it I have Alex Carter’s nose blood on me. -Just Like Jackie by Lindsey Stoddard

The life in my head seems

so different from the life outside,

where I am so big

that everyone stares,

but no one sees the real me. -All of Me by Chris Baron

In all his thirteen years, Justin Pennington had never been good with surprises. -Ready or Not by Laura Stegman

By the time I was fifteen years old, I had been in jail nine times. -Turning 15 on the Road to Selma by Lynda Blackmon Lowery (NF)

I thought my biggest problem on the first day of sixth grade would be fitting in. Turns out it was demons. -Vera Warden and the Two-Faced Demon by Jennifer Rose

There was a hint of wind coming over the top of the stone walls, and through the barb wire sky on the day Alexander Stove was to be Purged. -The Unwanteds by Lisa McMann

When I was nine years old, I hid under a table and heard my sister kill a king. - Quest for a Maid by Frances Mary Hendry

By 1899 we'd learned to tame the dark but not the Texas heat. -The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly *Newbery Award Winner

I can’t say my name. -The Way I Say It by Nancy Tandon

I hate zombies. -Dead City by James Ponti

Though math isn’t my thing, I do know that 52 weeks a year for 12 years is more than 7 x 70, so maybe God won’t mind if I decide I’m done forgiving. -work in progress by Jessica Hernandez

At first, they only threw tomatoes. -A Sky Full of Song by Lynn Meyer

One summer, when he was ten years old, Erik became famous for buying dead flies. The Swallows' Flight by Hilary McKay

“Where's Papa going with that ax?” said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast. -Charlotte's Web by E.B. White

Loah Londonderry lived in a house with three chimneys and one alarmingly crooked turret. -The Most Perfect Thing in the Universe 9 by Tricia Springstubb

I'd rather you walk away now. Life is hard enough without adding death to the mix. -The Wolf's Curse by Jessica Vitalis

You'd think spitting up frogs would be a lot like the worst stomach flu you've ever had, but it's surprisingly different. -The Carrefour Curse by Dianne Marenco Salerni

Here is my contribution to children’s literature!…

I was ten when Gaysie Cutter tried to kill me. It was just like her too - always leaving a bad first impression.” -The Unforgettable Guinevere St. Clair by Amy Makechnie

Every time Lionel Messi scores a goal, there’s a literally a small earthquake, an actual seismic shift. -Ten Thousand Tries by Amy Makechnie

In a large pink farmhouse at 238 Marigold Lane lives a most unusual nanny: Lord Tennyson, a short middle-aged gentleman with white whiskers and a royal pedigree. -The McNifficents by Amy Makechnie

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First lines are fun! They’re important! They are the difference between reading more…and not.

Do you have a favorite?

Let us now come full circle and end with Kate DiCamillo.

I’ve just finished Ann Patchett’s THESE PRECIOUS DAYS: ESSAYS. I read the last pages at a hair appointment on Friday. Dear, reader, I fought hard to hold it together, though I could have blamed the watery eyes on the chemicals in my hair.

In one essay, Ann confesses that she never reads children’s literature (WHAT?!), but when Kate DiCamillo came to Nashville and told the story of her mother’s vacuum cleaner and how it had inspired a novel about a squirrel who types poetry - “I was, along with every ten-year-old in the room, transfixed.”

Which led Ann Patchett to read THE MIRACULOUS JOURNEY OF EDWARD TULANE - and then everything else Kate D. had written. Well, Ann P. is a profoundly talented writer, and an adult in her 50’s and these books for children were life-changing: she writes that she felt greater love than she had ever felt for herself before.

This love is the power that children’s books hold. They are so special. These days I mostly read adult novels, but it is the books of my childhood and youth that continue to be the closest to my heart because they were the most transformative.

That’s what I got from those books, the ability to walk through the door where everything I thought had been lost was in fact waiting for me. All of it. The trick was being brave enough to look. The books had given me that bravery, which is another way of saying the ability to believe. -Ann Patchett on Kate DiCamillo

If you write for kids, you hold great power and something very precious in your hands.

Nothing is “just a story.”

Now…go write some fire first lines!

Amy

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Good News and Story Links:

Open for queries! Literary agent Kate McKean of Agents and Books is open for queries on October 2. Read her latest post to see what she’s looking for.

What I’m Reading: TOM LAKE by Ann Patchett (see my Instagram for my too-tall bookstack). What are you reading?

Perfect Fall Read-Alouds? TEN THOUSAND TRIES is kindof a perfect fall read aloud :) Actually, so is GUINEVERE While we’re at it, let’s throw in some MCNIFFS. And yes, I’d love to do an author visit!

Messi Mania: Does anyone have a bookstore, teacher, or library contact in Florida? With Messi now playing for Miami, let’s get TEN THOUSAND TRIES into more soccer-team-family-loving readers…please be in touch with any leads!

Thanks for talking books with me, Warren-Walker Middle School!!! TEN THOUSAND TRIES was a San Diego Middle School’s “One Read” book. SO FUN.