And I hope you read Canadian, too. November 8th is I Read Canadian Day this year – a day set aside to celebrate Canadian books. I was thinking of first lines of novels the other day, and as a writer and a reader, I know how important those first lines are. When I begin reading a novel written by a favorite writer (after I’ve read their Acknowledgements, which is a habit I have), the first line immediately lets me know that I’m in good hands, and that I’m about to enter a world that will engage me and my emotions and cause me to become invested in that world’s people.

So, here are my novels’ first lines:

A HARE IN THE ELEPHANT’S TRUNK (Red Deer Press, 2010)

PROLOGUE: “Jacob held his pointer finger just above his thumb, forming a small, rectangular box in the air. He closed one eye, held the box up to his open eye, and trapped puny little Majok in the frame.”

AND CHAPTER ONE: “From the gnarled branches high in the leafy baobab, Jacob saw Mama kneeling by the river. Even in the blue-gray dusk, with the sun glowing red on the horizon, he could see that she was the most beautiful of all the mothers, like a queen with a crown of braids.”

THE POWER OF HARMONY (Red Deer Press, 2013)

CHAPTER ONE: “The mirror on the back of the bathroom door’s all cloudy. Makes me look like an angel. A skinny, freckly angel in an itchy white dress. I’ve got the voice of an angel, too. That’s what my music teacher tells me. Only I don’t want to be in God’s heavenly choir. Not yet. Since that’s just a nice way of saying somebody died.”

ROCKET MAN (Red Deer Press, 2014)

CHAPTER ONE: “First day of basketball tryouts. The gym smells like rotten socks and last year’s sneakers. It’d be a fail, a colossal fail, to play D2 in Grade 8. I’ve gotta make Division 1 this year. I’m warming up, doing some power crossovers, when Roy Williams struts up to me, steals my ball, slam-dunks it, then hangs off the rim for about an hour, doing chin-ups.”

TALKING TO THE MOON (Red Deer Press, 2018)

CHAPTER ONE: “My real mother, Moonbeam Dupuis, disappeared on March 20th, 2008. On my fourth birthday. 2,699 days ago. Sir Isaac Newton died on that same date, only in 1727. He was the first scientist to notice that water could separate light into all the colors of the spectrum. Sir Isaac discovered gravity too – the invisible force that keeps us stuck to the earth, like what roots do for trees, so we’re not all the time astronaut-floating. Hugs are one of my Dislikes, but sometimes it feels like the earth’s not wrapping its invisible arms around me tight enough. Like gravity and my missing mother are both avoiding me. Part of me disappeared with Moonbeam. Since it’s an inside bit, the only one who knows it’s gone is me.”

SAY WHAT YOU MEAN ( Nevermore Press, 2019)

CHAPTER ONE: “I didn’t even know you were lost and needed to be found. Until we saw the note – under one of the scratch-and-sniff pizza magnets on the fridge. One of those yellow sticky notes you keep in your shirt pocket, the ones you leave the riddle clues on when we play hide-and-seek up at Gram’s. Only this was one messed-up clue. “GONE OUT WEST TO FIND MYSELF. SORRY.”

THE HERMIT (Nimbus Publishing, 2020)

CHAPTER ONE: “Hey, Danny! Wait up.” Huh? Why does he sound so far away? I look back over my shoulder at mini Ben, still at the very bottom of the mountain I just got done climbing. I collapse onto a massive log, help myself to some tasty wild blueberries, and prepare to wait for my super-slow friend.”

Interesting to type out these lines, especially since I wrote them years ago, but I remember so well the hundreds of times I rewrote these lines, and in fact, the entire first chapters of each of my novels. When I visit schools, kids are always surprised to hear that my novels all took more than three years to write – sometimes I’ll start something, then leave it for a time to work on something else, but the editing process is soooo… long. I started working on some of my picture books a dozen years before they were published ! I love working with editors because I know we’re both working toward creating a stronger book – and they have such great eyes for detail. And I’ve had the opportunity to work with some of the best in the business!

If you’re reading a Canadian book this week, which one is it? Happy reading!