WORD LISTS

"I Survived the Nazi Invasion, 1944" by Lauren Tarshis, Chapters 7–13

Tue Oct 24 17:51:58 EDT 2023
By Vocabulary.com (NY)Visual Thesaurus Moderator
In this ninth book of the historical fiction I Survived series, eleven-year-old Max Rosen is in a Polish forest, hiding from Nazis, when planes start to fly by and drop bombs.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Chapters 1–6, Chapters 7–13
frothy
There was nothing fancy, just bread, cheese, apples, and a pitcher of frothy milk.
bookish
His round glasses gave him a shy and bookish look.
base
To destroy the train, Aunt Hannah, Lev, and Martin had carried a fifty-pound explosive from their base in the forest.
smolder
Max could picture it all in his mind—the train’s dive from the bridge, the smoldering wreckage, the Nazi flag bursting into flames.
slight
They stayed hidden, avoiding towns, ducking into bushes at the slightest sound—a dog barking, a baby crying, a wagon clattering down a distant road.
defiantly
“But they’ll never find us,” Martin said defiantly.
brim
Her face was twisted in pain, her eyes brimming with tears.
grit
Zena gritted her teeth as Aunt Hannah peeled away her blood-soaked sock.
lurch
Max’s stomach lurched at the sight of her big toe—the skin was torn away, the nail almost completely ripped off.
flinch
Aunt Hannah didn’t flinch.
“It’s just that your boot is too small,” she said. “It’s not bad at all.”
cringe
“Barbed wire,” she said, pointing at a purple, jagged scar. “We set fire to a bullet factory, and I got caught on our way out.”
Max cringed.
canteen
Aunt Hannah opened her canteen and poured some water over Zena’s toe.
whine
There was a whining sound, and then a massive explosion behind them.
piercing
Max had seen them in the weeks after the invasion, streaking over Esties, low enough that he could see their pilots’ piercing eyes.
fleet
Papa told him they were the fastest bombers in the Nazi fleet, with six machine guns. Each plane could carry thousands of pounds of bombs.
flush
I’m sure the Nazis have the forest surrounded now. They’re trying to flush us out so they can capture us as we try to escape.
hoist
So Martin grabbed her arms and hoisted her up onto his back.
frantic
Above him, Max heard footsteps and voices frantically calling his name.
muffled
He screamed for help, but his voice was a muffled whisper.
grope
He groped around with his fingers, until he found a rock.
agonize
Max jammed the rock into the side of the ditch, scraping and digging. The work was agonizingly slow at first, and it was broiling hot.
raw
His entire body ached; his fingertips were raw and bleeding.
sneer
The man who had been aiming the gun was enormous. He looked Max up and down and sneered at him, the way Goliath must have first looked at David.
fumble
Martin fumbled with it, tugging at the lever and cursing under his breath.
searing
A split second later, the bullet tore into Max’s side with a searing, blinding pain.
gape
Max stared down in shock as blood gushed from the gaping wound.
wince
He winced in pain as he hoisted himself out the door.
grisly
The purple, puckered scar was even grislier than the ones Aunt Hannah and Martin had shown them.
eerie
They stopped in a cluster of dead trees that rose from the water like twisted skeletons. The forest glowed eerily around them, machine-gun fire pounded in the distance.
bustle
Soon he and Zena were swept into the bustling life of the camp.
cautious
The partisans spoke with cautious hope about the end of the war, about returning home.
wrestle
Was it right to forget?
Could Max really start a new and happy life after all that had happened?
For months before this voyage, he’d wrestled with these questions.
linger
His eyes lingered on his scar.
pucker
Sometimes the wound ached a little, but it had healed. Max ran his fingers across the puckered skin.
wisp
All they could see at first was a thin black wisp on the horizon.

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