WORD LISTS

"Two Degrees" by Alan Gratz, List 1

Tue Jul 08 21:56:17 EDT 2025
By Vocabulary.com (NY)Visual Thesaurus Moderator
Four young people find themselves struggling to survive against the devastating effects of climate change. Akira is caught inside a California wildfire; Owen and George battle and save a struggling polar bear in the Canadian tundra; and Natalie survives Miami's "Big One" hurricane.

This list covers vocabulary from "Red Flag Warning"–"Into the Storm."

Here are links to our lists for the book: List 1, List 2, List 3, List 4, List 5, List 6
withers
Akira looked over her shoulder at the smoke and sighed. Then she gave Dodger a pat on his withers to let him know she’d gotten his message.
“Thanks, Dodger. Everything’s okay,” she told him.
aback
Daniel looked taken aback. “You’re kidding, right? You don’t think the huge amounts of greenhouse gases we’re releasing into the air by burning fossil fuels has anything to do with the fact that the earth keeps getting hotter?”
ecosystem
“The earth is a huge ecosystem,” Akira’s dad said, like he was explaining it to a dummy. “We’re just one tiny part of it.”
canter
The horses moved at a quick canter down the trail.
migration
As soon as the bay froze over, the bears headed out to hunt seals again and begin their annual migration north.
permafrost
Tundra buggies looked like huge white buses on black monster truck tires. The big tires helped protect the fragile permafrost below, and kept the tourists up high, out of the reach of curious polar bears.
predator
“Polar bears are the largest land predators on Earth...”
hypothermia
"Can we swim with the polar bears?" the dark-haired kid from before interrupted.
Owen took a deep breath. "No," he said. “Again, the polar bear would eat you. Besides, the water around here is freezing this time of year. You’d probably die of hypothermia first.”
indigenous
The Mushkegowuk were an Indigenous people sometimes referred to as the Swampy Cree and now registered with the Canadian government as the York Factory First Nation.
millennium
George’s ancestors had lived in this part of the world for millennia and had been the ones to greet the first French trappers who ventured north from Montreal in the 1600s.
berate
...Owen didn’t know what to do next. He had no phone or flares or air horn, no bear spray or shotgun and cracker shells. All that was back in the snowmobile.
Because I wasn’t thinking, Owen berated himself.
lope
He heard the thumping crunch of Momma Bear’s paws in the snow as she loped after him. Th-thump, th-thump, th-thump.
perpetual
Tía Beatriz’s...face was squished and wrinkly with age. The wrinkles radiated out from her eyes and mouth in a sort of perpetual smile, matching her personality.
oscillate
The lights in Natalie’s house flickered. She, Mama, and Tía Beatriz sat together on the couch, listening to the oscillating roar of the storm outside — low, then loud, then low again.
surge
Natalie tried pushing past it all and escaping through the open wall at the back, but the storm surge was too strong.

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