"The Treasure of Lemon Brown"

Walter Dean Myers' short story "The Treasure of Lemon Brown" explores the question of what's worth fighting for.

Here are all the word lists to support the reading of Grade 6 Unit 1's texts from SpringBoard's Common Core ELA series: Imperfect Me, My Superpowers, Flipped, The Jacket, Kira-Kira, Thank You, M'am, Pandora and the Whispering Box, Eleven, The Treasure of Lemon Brown, The Fun They Had
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. reflect
    show an image of
    The dark sky, filled with angry, swirling clouds, reflected Greg Ridley's mood as he sat on the stoop of his building.
  2. lecture
    a long speech that scolds or reprimands
    Greg sat in the small, pale green kitchen listening, knowing the lecture would end with his father saying he couldn't play ball with the Scorpions.
  3. musty
    stale and unclean smelling
    He entered the room, frowning at the musty smell.
  4. intently
    with strained or eager attention
    His stomach tightened as he held himself still and listened intently.
  5. involuntary
    not subject to the control of the will
    Greg, except for an involuntary tremor in his knees, stood stock still.
  6. brittle
    not annealed and consequently easily cracked or fractured
    The voice was high and brittle, like dry twigs being broken
  7. commence
    take the first step or steps in carrying out an action
    They used to say I sung the blues so sweet that if I sang at a funeral, the dead would commence to rocking with the beat.
  8. beckon
    signal with the hands or nod
    The old man looked out, then beckoned frantically for Greg to follow him.
  9. gnarled
    old and twisted and covered in lines
    Lemon Brown squeezed Greg's hand in his own hard, gnarled fist.
  10. slur
    utter indistinctly
    "We heard you talking about your treasure." The voice was slurred.
  11. eerie
    suggestive of the supernatural; mysterious
    He was an eerie sight, a bundle of rags standing at the top of the stairs, his shadow on the wall looming over him.
  12. hurl
    make a thrusting forward movement
    As Greg howled, the light moved away from Lemon Brown, but not before Greg saw him hurl his body down the stairs at the men who had come to take his treasure.
  13. ominous
    threatening or foreshadowing evil or tragic developments
    A rush of warm air came in as the downstairs door opened, then there was only an ominous silence.
  14. scoundrel
    someone who does evil deliberately
    "Let's look out the window first, see what them scoundrels be doing," Lemon Brown said.
  15. reveal
    make visible
    He revealed some yellowed newspaper clippings
  16. harmonica
    a small rectangular instrument into which air is blown
    and a battered harmonica
  17. blues
    a type of folksong that originated among Black Americans
    They told of Sweet Lemon Brown, a blues singer and harmonica player who was appearing at different theaters in the South.
  18. review
    an essay or article that gives a critical evaluation
    All of the clippings were reviews of shows Lemon Brown had been in more than fifty years ago.
  19. octave
    a musical interval of eight tones
    "You guess so?" Lemon Brown's voice rose an octave as he started to put his treasure back into the plastic.
  20. scalawag
    a deceitful and unreliable scoundrel
    "You OK for a youngster," the old man said as he tied the strings around his leg, "better than those scalawags what come here looking for my treasure.
Created on Tue Aug 12 22:21:06 EDT 2014 (updated Wed Aug 13 09:40:40 EDT 2014)

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