Time for another first lines post

by Susan Berger

These lines are from middle grade and YA. Seven of them are first books. One has not yet been published, but I am sure it is going to be a first book. If you know any of these books, please leave a comment. If you have a favorite first line, please send it to me. (Even if it is from your book that had not yet be accepted for publication.)

My next post will be the answers, plus ten more lines.

1. "NO WAY,” I hissed through the slatted dressing room door, “I am not coming out.”

2. Fox Street was a dead end. In Mo Wren’s opinion, this was only one of many wonderful distinguishing thinks about it.

3. I was born into the sovereignty of nerds from which few have escaped and of which even fewer have had sex. For thirteen harrowing years nerdiness reigned supreme, leaving me unattractive and socially awkward with little more than a stellar report card to call a friend.

4. Frannie Lawrence believed in secrets. The Things you didn’t talk about the way words said out loud could. Words made the bad things too real sometimes. Better to keep silent with the hurt locked safely away.

5. I HAVE A PERFECT MOUTH. That is, at least according to my dentist, AKA my dad, AKA Dr. Dad.

6. It all started with Aldwyn’s whiskers beginning to tingle- the way they always did when he was hungry. Food had been getting hard to come by these last few months.

7. My earliest memory is fuzzy. Not because of time but because I’m looking out of a full body jumper. It’s sea foam green. My mom has cinched the head so tight that my vision is a fleecy porthole.

8. I pulled up on the front of my pink leotard and turned to the mirror to look at my large behind. No change there. I stretched the fabric tightly across my chest and frowned. Almost a sophomore and still no need of a bra. So much for cutting all those carbs. The calories would always hit us black girls in the wrong places.

9. “Hey, chubbo quit hogging the sidewalk!” Kenny Thompson yanked the front of his bike off the ground, circled around eight-year-old Macy Carver, and stuck out his tongue.

10. The sign in front of St Barnaby’s Home for the Hopeless, Abandoned, Forgotten and Lost read CRUSHINNG THE SPIRIT OF CHLDHOOD SINCE 1898.