The Power of an Introduction

Something my mom always taught me growing up was that I should always have a book that I'm reading on my nightstand.  So, I have felt a little lost the last week or so as I finished my previous book and have been waiting on Soar to be ready for me from the library.  Today, the eBook became available and I jumped right in!

I was really interested in how this book started.  The first paragraph does a great job of hooking readers-- I'm all in!  What a unique situation Jeremiah is in, and the author could have said something like, "Once there was a boy named Jeremiah.  He was left as a baby and adopted by a nice man.  He loved baseball and had a heart condition." (How boring is that?!)  But, instead of explaining everything to us, Joan Bauer drops a big bomb of information on us from the first sentence of the book, leaving readers wondering questions.  Over the next pages, she slowly gives more information and clues about the characters and situation and we can piece it all together, like a puzzle.  What smart writing!  This is something I plan to try in my writing...how about you?