Refugee: List 1

by Alan Gratz
Three young refugees — a Jewish boy fleeing Nazi Germany in 1939, a Cuban girl suffering under the Castro regime in 1994, and a Muslim boy trying to escape war-torn Syria in 2015 — make desperate journeys in search of freedom and safety.

This list covers pages 1–39 in the 2017 Scholastic edition.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: List 1, List 2, List 3, List 4, List 5, List 6

Here is a link to our lists for Prisoner B-3087 by Alan Gratz.
15 words 20627 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. cower
    crouch or curl up
    They cowered together on the floor as the shadows picked up Ruth’s bed and threw it against the wall.
  2. dismissive
    showing indifference or disregard
    The Brownshirt scowled at the noise and gave the men carrying Aaron Landau a dismissive wave.
  3. refinery
    an industrial plant for purifying a crude substance
    With no one to overpay for it, the cane fields dried up, the sugar refineries closed, and people lost their jobs.
  4. promenade
    a public area set aside as a pedestrian walk
    She stood on the wide promenade, where it seemed all of Havana was on display.
  5. intently
    with strained or eager attention
    She listened now, intently, trying to hear the heartbeat of Cuba in her own music.
  6. proverb
    a condensed but memorable saying embodying an important fact
    There was an old Arabic proverb that said, “Close the door that brings the wind and relax,” and that’s exactly what they did; while the rest of the Middle East was rioting, Syrians stayed inside and locked their doors and waited to see what would happen.
  7. indignation
    a feeling of righteous anger
    Mahmoud watched as these two boys attacked the boy with the bread, a boy he didn’t even know. He felt the stirrings of indignation, of anger, of sympathy.
  8. pandemonium
    a state of extreme confusion and disorder
    She leaped down off the hood of the car and pushed her way through the pandemonium.
  9. truncheon
    a short stout club used primarily by police officers
    The policeman raised his truncheon to hit her father again, and Isabel jumped in between them.
  10. catatonic
    characterized by unresponsiveness or lack of movement
    She hadn’t gone nearly catatonic like Waleed, but at some point it had gotten bad enough that she just stopped talking about it.
  11. sear
    cause a burning or stinging pain
    His shoulder ached and his chest still seared with every hard, desperate breath, but the only thing that mattered now was getting to his mother.
  12. pennant
    a flag that usually tapers and is longer than it is wide
    A steep ramp ran to the top of the tall black hull, and hundreds of people were already on board, milling around under colorful fluttering pennants and waving to friends and family down on the docks.
  13. threadbare
    thin and tattered with age
    He was thinner too. Too thin. A skeleton in a threadbare suit three sizes too big for him.
  14. gaunt
    very thin, especially from disease or hunger or cold
    Aaron Landau’s eyes bulged from his gaunt face as he turned to look at his children.
  15. queue
    form a line or stand in line
    They watched as Aaron Landau ran for the ramp, where other passengers had already queued up to hand their tickets to a smiling man in a sailor’s uniform.
Created on Wed May 22 13:35:43 EDT 2019 (updated Tue Jun 17 13:22:09 EDT 2025)

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