Answers To December First Lines

by Susan Berger


Just in time for Holiday shopping. The answers to December's first lines.  I used the Amazon links, but your own independent book store can order any of these titles. 

1.  I had just come to accept that my life would be ordinary when extraordinary things began to happen.

Miss Peregrines Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

2.  The hat in question was owned by Mrs. Constance Lovestock.  Mrs. Lovestock was a woman of some years, even greater means and no children. She was not a woman who did things by half measures.  Take her positions on swans.  She thought them the most beautiful, graceful creatures in the world.
The Emerald Atlas(Books of Beginning)  by John Stephens 

 Debut book

3.  "PLAY BALL!" called the home plate umpire of Ebbets Field. It was Major League Baseball's  Opening Day - April 15' 1947. The Brooklyn Dodgers were playing the Boston Braves.

Play Ball, Jackie by Stephen Krensky. illustrated by Joe Morse

4.  It was one the most important moments in Nathaniel Fludd's young life and he was stuck sitting in the corner.

Nathaniel FluddBeastologist. Book One Flight of the Phoenix by R.L. LaFevers. Illustrated by Kelly Murphy. 

Nominee for the 2012 Nene award.  The Nēnē Award is an annual award given by Hawai‘i’s children for the best children’s fiction book.  Students in grades 4, 5 and 6 vote

5.  HOW TO COOK AND EAT CHILDREN
A cautionary Tale by the Witch Fay Holaderry
I love children. Eating them, that is.

The Witch's Guide To Cooking With Children
By Keith McGowan with illustrations by Yoko Tanaka


Debut fiction book and a Nominee for the 2012 Nene award.  The Nēnē Award is an annual award given by Hawai‘i’s children for the best children’s fiction book.  Students in grades 4, 5 and 6 vote

6.  Ah Kee hummed as he carried his basket of guavas. Today was his birthday and Ma was taking him to the market.

Plenty Saimin by Feng Feng Hutchins. Illustrated by Adriano F.  Abatayo III.

First book

7.  Maybe you know. The feeling of how junk it is when summer ends.

Calvin Coconut, TroubleMagnet by Graham Salisbury. Illustrated by jacqueline Rogers

8.  Around 5:00 a.m. on a warm summer morning in October, 1953, my Aunt Belle left her bed and vanished from the face of the earth.

Belle Prater's Boy by Ruth White  This was a Newbery winner.  After reading this sentence, I checked it out of the Kailua Library to read.  Wow!

9.  Even as a little girl I had thought that the swamp was a magical place where new lives began and old lives ended, where enemies and heroes weren't always what one expected, and where anything could happen, even to a clumsy princess. 

The Frog Princess by E.D. Baker

I loved this book and read through the series.

10.  There was once an old and somewhat wise woman whom everyone called Grandy.  She’d just suffered a big loss in her life. Pops, her husband, suffered the same loss, but in his own way.  This is the story of how Grandy faced her loss by setting out to make tear soup.

Tear Soup  A recipe for healing after loss  by Pat Schweibert and Chuck DeKlyen.  Illustrated by Taylor Bills

A concerned reader suggested I have a link to all my first line posts.

Here it is: Links to First Line Posts.

I have been staying in Kailua with friends that just lost their 30 year old daughter, Jasmine, to cancer.  Jasmine left behind a seven year old daughter, Ka’ula.  The family was given this book and we all profited from it.  One of the best simple grief books I’ve ever read.