![]() ![]() Charlie made inner conflict look delicious.” – Please Ignore Vera Deitz, A.S. He lived hard because on the inside he was dying. He was free because on the inside he was tied up in knots. “The pastor is saying something about how Charlie was a free spirit.Of course, that killer whose hand occupies the first sentence isn’t leaving the novel. I like how the opening sentence doesn’t describe a person so much as it zeroes in on the hand and the knife, a disembodied image that fits perfectly this story of a boy whose parents die in the very first chapter and who lives in a graveyard full of ghosts. “There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife.” – The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman.It has a terrific blend of character development and action. Although it has multiple narrators, Yancey manages to make some of them unreliable but at the same time sympathetic. The best page-turner in the past year would have to be this story of alien invasion. No, I’m talking about the alents inside our own heads.” – The 5 th Wave, Rick Yancey. The Others are so far ahead of us, it’s like comparing the dumbest human to the smartest dog. The dialogue and the narration show how his struggles with speaking mask a sharp mind and generous heart. The situations and characters are top-notch, but this book is especially noteworthy for the way in which Vince Vawter gets into the head of a character who stutters. The best coming-of-age tale I’ve read recently is this story of an unnamed (until the last page) narrator who takes over his friend’s paper route during a hot summer in Memphis around the middle of the last century. “I’m typing about the stabbing for a good reason.No one understands the curse that hovers over the house and its family and our heroes, Molly and Kip, must deal with a mysterious stranger who comes at night to water a particularly gruesome tree. My winner for best late-autumn ghost story goes to this tale of two orphans who hire on as servants in a haunted mansion. “The calendar said early March but the smell in the air said late October” – The Night Gardener, Jonathan Auxier.Here are 10 books – all in the genre of Middle Grade or Young Adult fiction released within the last few years – that should grab you right away. And it can set us readers down in the middle of the action. ![]() It can introduce a character in a vivid way. ![]() ![]() It can set the tone from a standpoint of voice or theme. A really great beginning can do many things for a novel. They include my favorite novel of all time (“Whether I should turn out to be the hero of my own life…”), my favorite book in my current teaching load (“It is a truth universally acknowledged…”) and the book that got me truly hooked on reading back in 8 th grade (“When I stepped into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home.”). It got me thinking about great openers in literature. However, after reading the opening of James Dashner’s Scorch Trial, he was hooked. He certainly was bright but not a particularly motivated student. He had just spent the previous 10 minutes browsing through our school library for his next book of choice reading. The student slammed the book down on my desk and said, “I dare you to read that first sentence of the book and not want to read the entire chapter!” ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |