9 Great Openings

Some of my favorite passages from children's literature, or any literature, are the first lines in the book. And that is as it should be. Beginnings have to suck you in, make you care, and make you believe. The good ones also make you remember. We'd love to build a list here to provide a little literary inspiration. We'll also add the publisher and--where possible--the agent to help you hone in on who wants what.

Have a favorite opening? Please share it with us! We'll look up the publishing and agent info and add it in.

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When the doorbell rings at three in the morning, it's never good news.
Alex Rider was woken by the first chime. His eyes flickered open, but for a moment he stayed completely still in his bed, lying on his back with his head resting on the pillow. He heard a bedroom door open and a creak of wood as somebody went downstairs. The bell rang a second time, and he looked at the alarm clock glowing beside him. There was a rattle as someone slid the security chain off the front door.

Anthony Horowitz, Stormbreaker

Philomel 2001

United Agents

"You've got to be kidding me," the bouncer said, folding his arms across his massive chest. He stared down at the boy in the red zip-up jacket and shook his shaved head. "You can't bring that thing in here."
The fifty or so teenagers in line outside the Pandemonium Club leaned forward to eavesdrop. It was a long wait to get into the all-ages club, especially on a Sunday, and not much generally happened in line. The bouncers were fierce and would come down instantly on anyone who looked like they were going to start trouble. Fifteen-year-old Clary Fray, standing in line with her best friend, Simon, leaned forward along with everyone else, hoping for some excitement.
"Aw, come on." The kid hoisted the thing up over his head. It looked like a wooden beam, pointed at one end. "It's part of my costume."
The bouncer raised an eyebrow. "Which is what?"
The boy grinned. He was normal-enough-looking, Clary thought, for Pandemonium. He had electric blue dyed hair that stuck up around his head like the tendrils of a startled octopus, but no elaborate facial tattoos or big metal bars through his ears or lips. "I'm a vampire hunter." He pushed down on the wooden thing. It bent as easily as a blade of grass bending sideways. "It's fake. Foam rubber. See?"
The boy's wide eyes were way too bright a green, Clary noticed: the color of antifreeze, spring grass. Colored contact lenses, probably. The bouncer shrugged, abruptly bored. "Whatever. Go on in." The boy slid past him, quick as an eel. Clary liked the lilt to his shoulders, the way he tossed his hair as he went. There was a word for him that her mother would have used—insouciant.
"You thought he was cute," said Simon, sounding resigned. "Didn't you?" Clary dug her elbow into his ribs, but didn't answer.

Inside, the club was full of dry-ice smoke. Colored lights played over the dance floor, turning it into a multicolored fairyland of blues and acid greens, hot pinks and golds. The boy in the red jacket stroked the long razor-sharp blade in his hands, an idle smile playing over his lips. It had been so easy—a little bit of a glamour on the blade, to make it look harmless. Another glamour on his eyes, and the moment the bouncer had looked straight at him, he was in. Of course, he could probably have gotten by without all that trouble, but it was part of the fun—fooling the mundies, doing it all out in the open right in front of them, getting off on the blank looks on their sheeplike faces.

Cassandra Clare, City of Bones
Margaret K. McElderry Books (2007)

Barry Goldblatt, Barry Goldblatt Literary LLC

Long ago, on the wild and windy isle of Berk, a smallish Viking with a longish name stood up to his ankles in snow.
Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third, the Hope and Heir to the Tribe of the Hairy Hooligans, had been feeling slightly sick ever since he woke up that morning.
Ten boys, includng Hiccup, were  hoping to become full members of the Tribe by passing the Dragon Initiation Program. They were standing on a bleak little beach at the bleakest spot on the whole bleak island. A heavy snow was falling.

Cressida Cowell, How to Train Your Dragon

Little, Brown Books for Young Readers (2004)

David Higham Associates

I wish I had a boyfriend. I wish he lived in the wardrobe on a coat hanger. Whenever I wanted, I could get him out and he’d look at me the way boys do in films, as if I’m beautiful. He wouldn’t speak much, but he’d be breathing hard as he took off his leather jacket and unbuckled his jeans. He’d wear white pants and he’d be so gorgeous I’d almost faint. He’d take my clothes off too. He’d whisper, ‘Tessa, I love you. I really bloody love you. You’re beautiful’ – exactly those words – as he undressed me.
I sit up and switch on the bedside light. There’s a pen, but no paper, so on the wall behind me I write, I want to feel the weight of a boy on top of me. Then I lie back down and look out at the sky. It’s gone a funny colour – red and charcoal all at once, like the day is bleeding out.

Jenny Downham, Before I Die
David Fickling Books (2007)

Catherine Clarke, Felicity Bryan Literary Agency

One afternoon, when Bruno came home from school, he was surprised to find Maria, the family’s maid — who always kept her head bowed and never looked up from the carpet — standing in his bedroom, pulling all his belongings out of the wardrobe and packing them in four large wooden crates, even the things he’d hidden at the back that belonged to him and were nobody else’s business.

John Boyne, The Boy in the Stripped Pajamas

David Fickling Books (2006)

Simon Trewin, United Artists UK

Cat Chant admired his elder sister Gwendolen. She was a witch. He admired her and he clung to her. Great changes came about in their lives and left him no one else to cling to.

Diana Wynne Jones, Charmed Life

Greenwillow Books (2001)

Laura Cecil, Laura Cecil Literary Agent for Children's Books UK

7:09 A.M.

Everyone thinks it was because of the snow. And in a way, I suppose that's true.

Gayle Forman, If I Stay

Dutton (2009)

Sarah Burnes, The Gernert Company

The tree woman choked on poison, the slow sap of her blood burning. Most of her leaves had already fallen, but those remaining blackened and shriveled along her back. She pulled her roots up from the deep soil, long hairy tendrils that flinched in the chill late autumn air.

An iron fence had surrounded her trunk for years, the stink of the metal as familiar as any small ache. The iron scorched her as she dragged her roots over it. She tumbled onto the concrete sidewalk, her slow tree thoughts filling with pain. A human walking two little dogs stumbled against the brick wall of a building. A taxi screeched to a halt and blared its horn.

Holly Black, Valiant: A Modern Tale of Faerie

Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers (2005)

Barry Goldblatt, Barry Goldblatt Literary LLC

When the city of Ember was just built and not yet inhabited, the chief builder and the assistant builder, both of them weary, sat down to speak of the future.
"They must not leave the city for at least two hundred years," said the chief builder. "Or perhaps two hundred and twenty."
"Is that long enough?" asked his assistant.
"It should be. We can't know for sure."

Jeanne DuPrau, The City of Ember

Random House (2004)

Nancy Gallt, Nancy Gallt Literary

Torren was out at the edge of the cabbage field that day, the day the people came. He was supposed to be fetching a couple of cabbages for Dr. Hester to use in the soup that night, but, as usual, he didn’t see why he shouldn’t have some fun while he was at it. So he climbed up the wind tower, which he wasn’t supposed to do because, they said, he might fall or get his head sliced off by the big blades going round and round. The wind tower was four-sided, made of boards nailed one above the next like the rungs of a ladder. Torren climbed the back side of it, the side that faced the hills and not the village, so that the little group of workers hoeing the cabbage rows wouldn’t see him. At the top, he turned around and sat on the flat place behind the blades, which turned slowly in the idle summer breeze.

Jeanne DuPrau, The People of Sparks

Random House (2004)

Nancy Gallt, Nancy Gallt Literary

There were only two kinds of people in our town. "The stupid and the stuck," my father had affectionately classified our neighbors. "The ones who are bound to stay or too dumb to go. Everyone else finds a way out." There was no question which one he was, but I'd never had the courage to ask why. My father was a writer, and we lived in Gatlin, South Carolina, because the Wates always had, since my great-great-great-great-granddad, Ellis Wate, fought and died on the other side of the Santee River during the Civil War.

Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl, Beautiful Creatures

Little Brown (2010)

Sarah Burnes, The Gernert Company

My name is India Opal Buloni, and last summer my daddy, the preacher, sent me to the store for a box of macaroni-and-cheese, some white rice, and two tomatoes and I came back with a dog. This is what happened: I walked into the produce section of the Winn-Dixie grocery store to pick out my two tomatoes and I almost bumped right into the store manager. He was standing there all red-faced, screaming and waving his arms around.

Kate DiCamillo, Because of Winn-Dixie

Candlewick (2000)

Steven Malk, Writers House

Wanting to cry doesn't mean you can. Or at least not in any way that can give you some sort of satisfaction. It's a luxury really. The same goes for songs and laughter, or the words whispered in the ear of a friend.
I had taken these things for granted. How was I to know that out there, in the world I had once truly lived in, something as simple as an afternoon greeting could cause unimaginable devastation?

Kiera Cass, The Siren

Universe (2009)

Elana Roth, Caren Johnson Literary Agency

It didn't surprise Fire that the man in the forest shot her. What surprised her was that he shot her by accident.
The arrow whacked her square in the arm and threw her sideways against a boulder, which knocked the air out of her. The pain was too great to ignore, but behind it she focused her mind, made it cold and sharp, like a single star in a black winter sky. If he was a cool man, certain in what he was doing, he would be guarded against her, but Fire rarely encountered this type. More often the men who tried to hurt her were angry or arrogant or frightened enough that she could find a crack in the fortress of their thoughts, and ease her way in.
She found this man’s mind instantly - so open, so welcoming, even, that she wondered if he could be a simpleton hired by someone else. She fumbled for the knife in her boot. His footfalls, and then his breath, sounded through the trees. She had no time to waste, for he would shoot her again as soon as he found her. You don’t want to kill me. You’ve changed your mind.

Kristin Cashore, Fire

Dial Books for Young Readers (2009)

Faye Bender, Faye Bender Literary

So she tells me, the words dribbling out with the cranberry muffin crumbs, commas dunked in her coffee.
She tells me in four sentences. No, five.
I can't let me hear this, but it's too late. The facts sneak in and stab me. When she gets to the worst part
...body found in a motel room, alone...

Laurie Halse Anderson, Wintergirls
Viking Juvenile (2009)

Amy Berkower, Writers House

She knew every inch of the forest, every narrow path that twisted and wound its way beneath the silver branches. They never should have found her. She should have been up and away long before the horses' scent came to her, and very long before the sound of men's whispering drifted to her ears. Through the trees or in them, even above them, she could have fled in an instant, or hidden herself so well that they could scour the forest for days and never find her.

Leah Cypess, Mistwood

Greenwillow Books (2010)

Bill Contardi, Brandt & Hochman

"Please tell me that's not going to be part of my birthday dinner this evening."
I am staring into the hissing face of a cobra. A surprisingly pink tongue slithers in and out of a cruel mouth while an Indian man whose eyes are the blue of blindness inclines his head toward my mother and explains in Hindi that cobras make very good eating.
My mother reaches out a white-gloved finger to stroke the snake's back. "What do you think, Gemma? Now that you're sixteen, will you be dining on cobra?"
The slithery thing makes me shudder. "I think not, thank you."

Libba Bray, A Great and Terrible Beauty

Delacorte Press (2003)

Barry Goldblatt, Barry Goldblatt Literary LLC

The best day of my life happened when I was five and almost died at Disney World.
I'm sixteen now, so you can imagine that's left me with quite a few days of major suckage.

Libba Bray, Going Bovine

Delacorte Books for Young Readers (2009)

Barry Goldblatt, Barry Goldblatt Literary LLC

We all went down to the tar pit, with mats to spread our weight.
Ikky was standing on the bank, her hands in a metal twin loop behind her. She'd stopped staring; now she looked, more, starey and puzzled.
Chief Barnarndra pointed to the pit. "Out you go then, girl. You must walk out there to the middle and stand. When you picked a spot, your people can join you."
So Ik stepped out, very ordinary. She walked out. I thought--hoped even--she might walk right across and into the thorns the other side; at the same time, I knew she wouldn't do that.

Margo Lanagan, Black Juice

HarperTeen (2005)

First the colors.
Then the humans.
That’s usually how I see things.
Or at least, how I try.

HERE IS A SMALL FACT
You are going to die.

I am in all truthfulness attempting to be cheerful about this whole topic, though most people find themselves hindered in believing me, no matter my protestations. Please, trust me. I most definitely can be cheerful. I can be amiable. Agreeable. Affable. And that’s only the A’s. Just don’t ask me to be nice. Nice has nothing to do with me.

REACTION TO THE
AFOREMENTIONED FACT
Does this worry you?
I urge you—don’t be afraid.
I’m nothing if not fair.

Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

Knopf Books for Young Readers (2006)

Catherine Drayton, Curtis Brown

I'm dreaming of the boy in the tree and at the exact moment I'm about to hear the answer I've been waiting for, the flashlights yank me out of what could have been one of those moments of perfect clarity people talk about for the rest of their lives.

Melina Marchetta, Jellicoe Road
Harper Teen (2008)

Jill Grinberg, Jill Grinberg & Associates

Irial watched the girl stroll up the street: she was a bundle of terror and fury. He stayed in the shadows of the alley outside the tattoo parlor, but his gaze didn't waver from her as he finished his cigarette.

Melissa Marr, Ink Exchange

HarperCollins (2008)

Merillee Heifetz, Writers House

Devlin stood immobile as the spectral girl approached. The plume of his  hat and the dark ringlets that framed her face were motionless, despite the breeze that swept over the field. The air did not touch her; consequently he was unsure if he could.
"I seem to be dreaming or, mayhaps, lost," she murmured.
"Indeed."
"I was resting over"--she gestured behind her, frowned, and gave him a shaky smile--"in the cave that seems to have vanished. Am I still resting?"

Melissa Marr, Radiant Shadows

HarperCollins (2010)

Merillee Heifetz, Writers House

The Summer King knelt before her. "Is this what you freely choose, to risk winter's chill?"
She watched him—the boy she'd fallen in love with these past weeks. She'd never dreamed he was something other than human, but now his skin glowed as if flames flickered just under the surface, so strange and beautiful she couldn't look away. "It's what I want."
"You understand that if you are not the one, you'll carry the Winter Queen's chill until the next mortal risks this? And you'll warn her not to trust me?" He paused, glancing at her with pain in his eyes. She nodded. "If she refuses me, you will tell the next girl and the next"—he moved closer—"and not until one accepts, will you be free of the cold."
"I do understand."

Melissa Marr, Wicked Lovely

HarperCollins (2007)

Merillee Heifetz, Writers House

I was raised in a gaunt house with a garden; my earliest recollections are of floating lights in the apple-trees.

We went to the moon to have fun, but the moon turned out to completely suck.

M.T. Anderson, Feed
Candlewick (2004)

I recall, in the orchard behind the house, orbs of flames rising through the black boughs and branches; they climbed, spiritous, and flickered out; my mother squeezed my hand with delight. We stood near the door to the ice-chamber.
By the well, servants lit bubbles of gas on fire, clad in frock coats of asbestos.
Around the orchard and gardens stood a wall of some height, designed to repel the glance of idle curiosity and to keep us all from slipping away and running for freedom; though that, of course, I did not yet understand.

M.T. Anderson, The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing

Candlewick (2006)

The woods were silent, other than the screaming.
It was a summer's night. Nothing in the forest moved. Somewhere in the darkness, things wailed hoarsely.

M.T. Anderson, The Suburb Beyond the Stars

Scholastic (2010)

Brian Thatz noticed he was being followed as he walked from his cello lesson to the old office building where he played interdimensional games.

M.T. Anderson, The Suburb Beyond the Stars

Scholastic (2010)

The human-instinct for self-preservation is strong. I know, because mine pulls at me, too, like the needle on a compass. And everybody--I've been reading some philosophy--everybody seems to agree that the instinct and responsibility of all humans is to take care of themselves first. You have the right to survive. If you can.

Nancy Werlin, The Rules of Survival

Dial (2006)

Ginger Knowlton, Curtis Brown

If your teacher has to die, August isn't a bad time for it. You know August. The corn is earring. The tomatoes are ripening on the vine. The clover's in full bloom. There's a little less evening now, and that's a warning. You want to live every day twice over because you'll be back in the jailhouse of school before the end of the month.
Then our teacher, Miss Myrt Arbuckle, hauled off and died. It was like a miracle, though she must have been forty.

Richard Peck, The Teacher's Funeral

Perfection Learning (2006)

Sheldon Fogelman, Sheldon Fogelman Agency

The end of the world started when a pegasus landed on the hood of my car.

Rick Riordan, The Last Olympian (Percy Jackson & the Olympians, Book 5)
Disney Hyperion Books for Children (2009)

Nancy Gallt, Nancy Gallt Literary Agency

The first time I heard my dead mother's voice, there was a logical explanation.

It was the middle of the night, naturally--that's when ghosts tend to visit. I woke from a familiar nightmare, gulping down air, my face damp with sweat, my heart hammering, visions of blue and green slipping away as I grabbed darkness gratefully instead.

Rune Michaels, The Reminder

Ginee Seo Books (2008)

George Nicholson, Sterling Lord Literistic

"Any minute now," Rachel said, "something terrible is going to happen to us."

The area around Burnt House Lane was deserted at this time of night. The cracks in the pavement that Mae hardly noticed by day had turned into shadowy scars along the cement, tracing jagged paths that led into the dark of yet another dead-end alley. They peered down into the alley and made the silent mutual decision to walk on extremely fast. Mae was in the lead.

"Come on, this is an adventure."

Rachel muttered behind her, "I'm pretty sure that's what I just said."

Sarah Rees Brennan, The Demon's Covenant

Margaret K. McElderry (2009)

Kristin Nelson, Nelson Literary Agency 

The pipe under the sink was leaking again. It wouldn't have been so bad, except that Nick kept his favorite sword under the sink.).

Sarah Rees Brennan, The Demon's Lexicon

Margaret K. McElderry (2009)

Kristin Nelson, Nelson Literary Agency 

Bixby High’s late bell shrieked in the distance, like something wounded and ready to be cut from the herd.
Rex Greene was always late these days, stumbling in confusion from one class to another, late with his father’s pills or forgetting them altogether. But the worst was getting up for school. It didn’t help that he’d unplugged his clock a few nights ago, unable to sleep with the soft buzzing sound it made all night, like a mosquito hovering just out of arm’s reach. His newly acute hearing had turned every electronic contraption into something whiny and annoying.

Scott Westerfeld, Blue Noon

HarperTeen (2006)

Jill Grinberg, Jill Grinberg & Associates

The halls of Bixby High School were always hideously bright on the first day of school. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, their white honeycombed plastic shields newly cleaned of dead insect shapes. The freshly shined floors dazzled, glinting in the hard September sunlight that streamed in through the school’s open front doors. Rex Greene walked slowly, wondering how the students jostling past him could run into this place. His every step was a struggle, a fight against the grating radiance of Bixby High, against being trapped here for another year. For Rex summer vacation was a place to hide, and every year this day gave him the sinking feeling of having just been discovered, caught, pinned like an escaping prisoner in a searchlight. Rex squinted in the brightness and pushed up his glasses with one finger, wishing he could wear dark shades over their thick frames. One more layer between him and Bixby High School.

Scott Westerfeld, Midnighters

HarperTeen (2004)

Jill Grinberg, Jill Grinberg & Associates

The six hoverboards slipped among the trees with the lightning grace of playing cards thrown flat and spinning. The riders ducked and weaved among ice-heavy branches, laughing, knees bent and arms outstretched. In their wake glowed a crystal rain, tiny icicles shaken from the pine needles to fall behind, aflame with moonlight.
Tally felt everything with an icy clarity: the brittle, freezing wind across her bare hands, the shifting gravities that pressed her feet against the hoverboard. She breathed in the forest, tendrils of pine coating her throat and tongue, thick as syrup.

Scott Westerfeld, Specials

Simon Pulse (2006)

Jill Grinberg, Jill Grinberg & Associates

The early summer sky was the color of cat vomit.
Of course, Tally thought, you’d have to feed your cat only salmon-flavored cat food for a while, to get the pinks right. The scudding clouds did look a bit fishy, rippled into scales by a high-altitude wind. As the light faded, deep blue gaps of night peered through like an upside-down ocean, bottomless and cold. Any other summer, a sunset like this would have been beautiful. But nothing had been beautiful since Peris turned pretty. Losing your best friend sucks, even if it’s only for three months and two days.

Scott Westerfeld, Uglies

Simon Pulse (2005)

Jill Grinberg, Jill Grinberg & Associates

When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold. My fingers stretch out, seeking Prim’s warmth but finding only the rough canvas cover of the mattress. She must have had bad dreams and climbed in with our mother.

Of course, she did. This is the day of the reaping.

I prop myself up on one elbow. There’s enough light in the bedroom to see them. My little sister, Prim, curled up on her side, cocooned in my mother’s body, their cheeks pressed together. In sleep, my mother looks younger, still worn but not so beaten-down. Prim’s face is as fresh as a raindrop, as lovely as the primrose for which she was named. My mother was very beautiful once, too. Or so they tell me.

Sitting at Prim’s knees, guarding her, is the world’s ugliest cat. Mashed-in nose, half of one ear missing, eyes the color of rotting squash. Prim named him Buttercup, insisting that his muddy yellow coat matched the bright flower. He hates me. Or at least distrusts me. Even though it was years ago, I think he still remembers how I tried to drown him in a bucket when Prim brought him home. Scrawny kitten, belly swollen with worms, crawling with fleas. The last thing I needed was another mouth to feed. But Prim begged so hard, cried even, I had to let him stay. It turned out okay. My mother got rid of the vermin and he’s a born mouser. Even catches the occasional rat. Sometimes, when I clean a kill, I feed Buttercup the entrails. He has stopped hissing at me.

Entrails. No hissing. This is the closest we will ever come to love.

Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games
Scholastic Press (2008)
Rosemary B. Stimola, Stimola Literary Studio

I heard the gunshot and I knew what had happened. Even before I made it downstairs to Dad's office, I knew what he'd done.

The last time I ever talked to my dad, I didn't know it was going to be the last time, and I've wondered a million times since then if he knew.

Terry Trueman, No Right Turn
HarperTeen (2006)
George Nicholson, Sterling Lord Literistic