Legendary Frybread Drive-In: "I Love You, Grandson," by Brian Young

by Cynthia Leitich Smith
Sandy June's Legendary Frybread Drive-In is a magical place where Indigenous teens can find love, support, comfort, and community — no matter where in space or time they come from.

Here are links to our lists for the last nine selections in this collection:
Momentum; I Love You, Grandson; The Rest Will Come; Language Lesson; Hearts Aflutter; Love Buzz; Jilly Bean and Jessa Jean; Kathy's Poem and Open Mic at the Drive-In
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. amass
    collect or gather
    Inside the stainless-steel pot, blue corn powder was amassing into tiny balls that grew into dense lumps.
  2. curdle
    turn from a liquid to a solid mass
    Jason turned off the stove, frustrated that the mixture had curdled again.
  3. faux
    not genuine or real
    He sat at the faux wooden table and his spine wilted.
  4. wilt
    become limp
    He sat at the faux wooden table and his spine wilted.
  5. interment
    the ritual placing of a corpse in a grave
    Uncles, aunties, cousins, other grandmas, other grandpas, his mom, and Jason shared stories and pictures of Grandma in the Nazlini Chapter House after the interment.
  6. subsist
    support oneself
    They had subsisted on leftovers and the occasional McDonald’s takeout from Window Rock.
  7. tempt
    dispose, incline, or entice to
    By making her tóshchíín, he hoped she might be tempted to eat and regain her strength.
  8. endure
    continue to live through hardship or adversity
    Not only had his mom eaten it before, Grandma had said that the Diné ancestors ate tóshchíín for strength to endure tough trials.
  9. impact
    the striking of one body against another
    He closed his eyes and braced for impact with . . . the soft grass.
  10. appliance
    a durable device for performing some job in a home or office
    One station had modern stainless-steel appliances that reflected light and sparkled like a still lake under stars.
  11. grating
    a barrier made of parallel or crossed bars
    Another station had a big earthen firepit with charred metal grating and black cast-iron pots.
  12. jerky
    meat cut in strips and dried in the sun
    Far in the back was a station that was made of crisscrossing beams, upon which were thin strips of meat being turned into jerky.
  13. delicacy
    something considered choice to eat
    Thomacita’s workstation had reclosable plastic bags filled with Diné delicacies like ground white corn, blue corn, dééh, and chii.chin.
  14. fragment
    an incomplete piece
    Even though she was mad at him, Jason was relieved to see some fragments of her usual fierce self.
  15. wallow
    devote oneself entirely to something
    “And it’s going to, for a long while. But day by day, step by step, we’ll carry on. She wouldn’t want us to wallow. She’d want us to live and be happy.”
Created on Tue Feb 24 04:51:43 EST 2026 (updated Tue Mar 24 18:47:13 EDT 2026)

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