Top Ten Tuesday: Opening Lines

Sometimes an opening line will grab you right away, while others fade into the distance as you are sucked up by the setting, the characters, and the plot. Here are some opening lines I love from the books that surround me in my home office. Enjoy!

Top Ten Tuesday: Opening Lines

1. Dear Sweet Pea by Julie Murphy
   “I’ve counted my birthday savings three times, and at this rate, I don’t think I’ll ever have enough money to clone myself.”
2. Echo Mountain by Lauren Wolk
   “The first person I saved was a dog.”
3. Ivy Aberdeen’s Letter to the World by Ashley Herring Blake
   “A storm was coming, which was perfect.”
4. The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill
   “Yes.”
5. A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park
   “Going was easy.”
6. Mañanaland by Pam Muñoz Ryan
   “Somewhere in the Américas, many years after once-upon-a-time and long before happily-ever-after, a boy climbed the cobbled steps of an arched bridge in the tiny village of Santa Maria, in the country of the same name.”
7. The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart
   “In a city called Stonetown, near a port called Stonetown Harbor, a boy named Reynie Muldoon was preparing to take an important test.”
8. Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy by Karen Foxlee
   “In the end the Queen was nothing like she was in the stories the Marvelous Boy had been told, first as a child beside the hearth and later by the wizards.”
9. Race to the Bottom of the Sea by Lindsay Eagar
   “Two scoops of mashed fish guts. Four gallons of blood. Mix together in a barrel, then pour into the ocean.”
10. The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo
    “This story begins within the walls of a castle, with the birth of a mouse.”

The Artsy Reader Girl currently hosts Top Ten Tuesday, an original feature created by The Broke and the Bookish.