WORD LISTS

"Two Degrees" by Alan Gratz, List 2

Tue Jul 08 22:06:28 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 "Going Nowhere"–"Refugees."

Here are links to our lists for the book: List 1, List 2, List 3, List 4, List 5, List 6
smolder
Hot cinders bounced onto the car that had run into them and settled in, smoldering on its surface.
wildfire
Get somewhere safe, Akira’s dad had said. But what was safe in the middle of a wildfire?
harrowing
Akira sagged with relief. She quickly told her mom about meeting Sue and Daniel, about the harrowing drive through the fire, and her and Sue getting separated from their dads.
catatonic
Sue’s eyes went wide and she got a far-off look, like she was about to go catatonic.
dubious
Sue gave Akira a dubious look.
“It’s true,” Akira told her.
maul
He hadn’t been paying attention, and he’d come between a momma bear and her cub. Thanks to his obliviousness, he and George had been ruthlessly mauled.
loll
George’s eyes were closed and his head lolled lifelessly, but Owen could still see the slow, steady rise and fall of his friend’s chest. That gave him hope.
gingerly
Very gingerly, Owen pulled his friend’s torn ski mask off his head.
tundra
The ground beneath them jerked lower again, and this time there was no doubt. They had both been out on the tundra enough to know when they were on thin ice.
grueling
Pushing the snowmobile wasn’t easy when they weren’t injured. Now it was grueling.
assess
It was how the bears investigated something new, spiraling in toward it to assess the threat.
disoriented
Her head shot out of the water, and Natalie gasped and coughed, dizzy and disoriented.
eaves
Street signs folded flat around their poles. And the water — the water was almost up to the eaves of the one-story houses that lined the street.
ebb
The storm surge was already higher than the front door, but as the water ebbed, Natalie was able to grab on to the top of the doorframe, take a deep breath, and swim in through the open door.
lurch
The floor underneath them shuddered and lurched again, sloshing water back and forth across their feet, and this time there was no doubting it.
The house was moving.

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