Strong Lead and Ending from Old Yeller by Fred Gipson

Lead:

We called him Old Yeller. The name had a sort of double meaning. One part meant that his short hair was a dingy yellow, a color that we called "yeller" in those days. The other meant that when he opened his head, the sound he let out came closer to being a yell than a bark.
I remember like yesterday how he strayed in out of nowhere to our log cabin on Birdsong Creek. He made me so mad a first that I wanted to kill him. Then, later, when I had to kill him, it was like having to shoot some of my own folks. That's how much I'd come to think of the big yeller dog.

Closing:

When finally I couldn't laugh and cry another bit, I rode on up to the lot and turned my horse in. Tomorrow, I thought, I'll take Arliss and that pup out for a squirrel hunt. The pup was still mighty little. But the way I figured it, if he was big enough to act like Old Yeller, he was big enough to start learning to earn his keep.

Emily Windsnap and the Monster from the Deep

by Liz Kessler

Sunny golden rays beamed into the room from the skylights all along the ceiling.

--suggested by Camila E. (5th Grade)

Wood Song by Gary Paulsen

Great lead:
I understood almost nothing about the woods until it was nearly too late.
Great ending:
Cookie, the leader, stopped before the arch and I had to drag her beneath it to finish--she was afraid of the crowd of people. I turned and could not keep from crying as I hugged my wife and son and then the dogs, starting from front to back, hugging each dog until two mushers took them away to put them on beds and I turned to the mayor of Nome who was there to greet me and said the one thing I never thought I would ever say.
"We'll be back to run it again."
And I knew that it was true.