Special Sub-Topic: Opening Lines from Books Click Here To Play: Opening Lines from Books

"Serene was a word you could put to Brooklyn, New York."

"A Tree Grows in Brooklyn". "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" by Betty Smith tells the story of a girl growing up in poverty and hard times.

"In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit."

"The Hobbit". "The Hobbit" by J.R.R.Tolkien is about a hobbit finding his courage on an extraordinary life-altering journey.

"On a morning in mid-April, 1687, the brigantine 'Dolphin' left the open sea, sailed briskly across the Sound to the wide mouth of the Connecticut River and into Saybrook harbor."

"The Witch of Blackbird Pond". "The Witch of Blackbird Pond" by Elizabeth George Spears is a book about a young girl's rebellion that leads to a witch hunt and trial.

"The scenes of this story, as its title indicates, lie among a race hitherto ignored by the associations of polite and refined society; an exotic race, whose ancestors, born beneath a tropic sun, brought with them, and perpetuated to their descendants, a character so essentially unlike the hard and dominant Anglo-Saxon race, as for many years to have won from it only misunderstanding and contempt."

"Uncle Tom's Cabin". "Uncle Tom's Cabin" by Harriet Beecher Stowe made Americans realize how badly slaves were being treated and that slavery should end. It was definitely one of the reasons the war started, out of many.

"Matthias cut a comical little figure as he wobbled his way along the cloisters, with his large sandals flip-flopping and his tail peeping from beneath the baggy folds of an oversized novice's habit."

"Redwall". "Redwall" by Brian Jacques is about a heroic mouse trying to save Redwall Abbey from being conquered by an evil rat.

"I was born in the year 1632, in the city of York, of a good family, though not of that country, my father being a foreigner of Bremen, named Kreutznaer, who settled first at Hull."

"Robinson Crusoe". "Robinson Crusoe" by Daniel Defoe tells the story of one man who is shipwrecked on a tropical island.

"The hottest day of the summer so far was drawing to a close and a drowsy silence lay over the large, square houses of Privet Drive."

"Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix". "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" is the story of Harry's fifth year at Hogwarts.

"Algernon: Did you hear what I was playing Lane?"

"The Importance of Being Earnest". "The Importance of Being Earnest" by Oscar Wilde is an excellent play (which you can read in book form) that was recently made into a wonderful movie.

"My father's family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name, Phillip, my infant tongue could make make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip."

"Great Expectations". "Great Expectations" by Charles Dickens is about a little orphan boy being raised by relatives and having "great expectations" about his life after a mysterious benefactor appears.

"My New Year's Resolution by Princess Amelia Mignonette Grimaldi Thermopolis Ronaldo, Age 14 years and 8 months"

"Princess in Waiting". All of the books by Meg Cabot are about Mia, a girl trying to deal with high school and her country. "The Princess Bride", of course, is by William Goldman.