WORD LISTS

"A Long Walk to Water" by Linda Sue Park, Chapters 1–5

Wed Mar 26 20:35:53 EDT 2014
By Vocabulary.com (NY)Visual Thesaurus Moderator
A boy named Salva struggles to survive after being separated from his family in war-torn Sudan. A girl named Nya spends hours each day collecting water for her parents and sister. Their lives eventually intersect in this novel based on a true story.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Chapters 1–5, Chapters 6–11, Chapters 12–18
drone
The teacher droned on with the lesson, about the Arabic language.
urgent
“Go quickly, all of you,” the teacher said, his voice low and urgent. “Into the bush. Do you hear me? Not home. Don’t run home. They will be going into the villages. Stay away from the villages — run into the bush.”
veer
Overhead, a jet plane veered away like a sleek evil bird.
tense
At first, everyone stood around uncertainly, speaking in tense whispers or silent with fear.
gleaming
All he could see was the gun’s huge barrel, black and gleaming, as it moved toward his face.
sludge
The dirt under her feet turned to mud, then sludge, until at last she was ankle-deep in water.
ritual
The ritual scar patterns on her forehead were familiar: They were Dinka patterns, which meant that she was from the same tribe as Salva.
flinch
Salva flinched at her glance. Would she be friendly to a stranger? Would she be angry with him for spending the night in her barn?
haunch
Squatting on his haunches next to her, Salva shelled the nuts and ate them.
artillery
During the daytime, Salva could hear the distant booming of artillery from the fighting a few miles away.
desperately
With every shell that exploded he would think of his family, hoping they were safe, wondering desperately when he would be with them again.
lag
Then he caught up with the group, determined not to lag behind, not to complain, not to be any trouble to anyone.
stunted
The terrain changed from scrub to woodland; they walked among stands of stunted trees.
abruptly
Buksa stopped abruptly in front of a very large tree.
gingerly
It was worth it, Salva thought as he touched his eye gingerly.

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