1. The First Lines

2. “In an old, brown house in Paris that was covered with vines lived twelve little girls in two straight lines.”

3. Ludwing Bebelmans

4. “In the great green room, there was a telephone and a red balloon.”

5. Margaret Wise Brown

6. “This is George. He lived in Africa.”

7. H.A. Rey

8. “Chug, chug, chug. Puff, puff, puff. ding-dong, ding-dong.”

9. Watty Piper

10. “Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming downstairs, but sometimes he feels, that there really is another way, if only he could stop bumping for a moment and think of it.”

11. A.A. Milne Winnie the Pooh Winnie the Pooh

12. “Here is James Henry Trotter when he was about four years old. Up until this time, he had had a happy life, living peacefully with his mother and father in a beautiful house beside the sea.”

13. Roald Dahl

14. “ Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies with Uncle Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who was the farmer’s wife. Their house was small, for the timber to build it had to be carried by wagon many miles.”

15. L. Frank Baum

16. “Where’s Papa going with that ax?” said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast.”

17. E.B. White

18. “Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.”

19. J.K. Rowling

20. “On Christmas Eve, many years ago, I lay quietly in my bed. I did not rustle the sheets. I breathed slowly and silently. I was listening for a sound—a sound a friend told me I’d never hear— the ringing of bells of Santa’s sleigh.”

21. Chris van Allsburgh

22. “The sun did not shine. It was too wet to play. So we sat in the house. All that cold, cold, wet day.”

23. Dr. Seuss

24. Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, “and what is the use of a book,” thought Alice, “without pictures or conversations?”

25. Lewis Carroll

26. “All children, except one, grow up.”

27. James M. Barrie

28. “If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better off reading some other book. In this book, not only is there no happy ending, there is no happy beginning and very few happy things in the middle.”

29. Lemony Snicket

30. “It was seven o’clock of a very warm evening in the Seeonee hills when Father Wolf woke up from his day’s rest, scratched himself, yawned, and spread out his paws one after the other to get rid of the sleepy feeling in their tips.”

31. Rudyard Kipling The Jungle Book The Jungle Book

32. “Once there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmond, and Lucy”

33. C.S. Lewis

34. “Ba-room, ba-room, ba-room, baripity, baripity, baripity, baripity --- Good.”

35. Katherine Paterson

36. “Now remember,” Mother said, “your father and I are bringing some guests by after the opera, so please keep the house neat.”

37. Chris van Allsburgh

38. “ These two very old people are the father and mother of Mr. Bucket. Their names are Grandpa Joe and Grandma Josephine.”

39. Roald Dahl

40. “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.”

41. Kate DiCamillo

42. “Not long ago, there lived in London a young married couple of Dalmatian dogs named Pongo and Misses Pongo.”

43. Dodie Smith

44. “When Mrs. Frederick C. Little’s second son arrived, everybody noticed that he was not much bigger than a mouse.”

45. E.B. White