The Thing About Luck: Chapters 4–6

by Cynthia Kadohata
Summer is a twelve-year-old Japanese-American girl who learns more about her family, her heritage, and herself during a harvest season filled with bad luck.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Chapters 1–3, Chapters 4–6, Chapters 7–11, Chapters 12–16
35 words 17 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. refine
    treat or prepare so as to put in a usable condition
    The company that made the DEET said they used an extra refining process that almost eliminated the smell.
  2. cultivated
    developed by human care and for human use
    One of my favorite things was driving through Kansas when both the wild and cultivated sunflowers were in bloom.
  3. apparatus
    equipment designed to serve a specific function
    In the front of the combine is a detachable apparatus called a header. The header cuts the crop as the combine moves forward.
  4. inedible
    not suitable for food
    Then the insides of the combine separate the edible wheat from the inedible chaff and then send the wheat into a bin on the back of the combine.
  5. chaff
    material consisting of seed coverings and pieces of stem
    The chaff drops to the ground, where it stays to help fertilize the soil for next year.
  6. silo
    a cylindrical tower used for storing grain
    So, the grain elevators use systems of augers to move the wheat into the silos.
  7. wicker
    flexible branches or twigs that can be woven together
    A quilt was one of two things I had always wanted. The other thing was a wicker chair for the front porch.
  8. covet
    wish, long, or crave for
    “What kind of girl wants a wicker chair?” my mother had asked when I’d told her that. I knew why she said that. I mean, the other girls at school coveted smartphones.
  9. punctual
    acting or arriving exactly at the time appointed
    It was weird because my grandparents were always saying it was important to be punctual, and they were always rushing around to be on time, but they were almost always late.
  10. badlands
    deeply eroded barren land
    In the Badlands you could see rocks of every color and shape. One time, over unending cliffs of gray rocks, we saw a cloud-and-fog storm approaching, as if it were aiming right for us.
  11. thresh
    beat the seeds out of a grain
    The employees got paid by the month, regardless of whether they worked sixteen-hour days or hardly any hours because of rain—it was impossible to harvest during a rain because combines can’t thresh wheat if it’s too moist.
  12. woeful
    affected by or full of grief or sadness
    I had tried to explain to them that you could use T-shirts to express yourself. Jiichan had shaken his head and said woefully, “No can be different by doing same thing as everyone else.”
  13. logistics
    supplying an operation with labor and materials as needed
    I tried to figure out who’d be doing what—four semi drivers, three combine drivers, one tractor driver. But that left an extra combine. The logistics always made my head spin.
  14. saunter
    walk leisurely and with no apparent aim
    Robbie Parker sauntered out of the house with his hands in his pockets.
  15. scoff
    laugh at with contempt and derision
    “You do not,” I scoffed at him.
  16. extravagant
    characterized by richness and abundance
    We had filled plastic bottles with tap water because my grandparents couldn’t understand why anyone would pay for something that you could get from your own faucet. Personally, I loved bottled water. It made me feel extravagant and grown-up.
  17. convoy
    a procession of land vehicles traveling together
    I thought of what Obaachan had said about not stopping the convoy for her.
  18. skimp
    supply sparingly and with restricted quantities
    I swear we followed every recipe exactly, but once in a while Mrs. Parker would wrinkle her forehead and say something like, “Maybe you skimped on the sugar?”
  19. sift
    check and sort carefully
    When I looked up, Jaz was sifting through some papers the Parkers had given us.
  20. yield
    production of a certain amount
    One harvest in Texas, when there had been a lot of rain, the average yield in the state had been nearly sixty bushels an acre, which was quite a lot.
  21. makeshift
    done or made using whatever is available
    The convoy turned down a dirt road where a makeshift sign that read PARKERS TURN HERE was stuck on a tree.
  22. irate
    feeling or showing extreme anger
    “Great, great. I want this to be a quick job.” He said that with the slightest hint of warning in his voice, like if it wasn’t a quick job, he would be irate.
  23. burly
    muscular and heavily built
    Hail could break the wheat or smash it to the ground. I had actually seen a farmer—a big, burly man—cry during a hailstorm.
  24. subside
    wear off or die down
    When the noise subsided, Mrs. Parker, looking worried, approached us.
  25. overwhelming
    very intense
    She looked at him with what could only be called overwhelming love.
  26. impressive
    making a strong or vivid mental image
    Then out of nowhere the thought popped into my head: I should have used the word “impressive,” as in “It’s really impressive that your mother has a photographic memory.”
  27. aura
    distinctive but intangible quality around a person or thing
    It wasn’t boarded up, but it just had that aura of something that was closed forever.
  28. scrawl
    write carelessly
    I looked at the lines scrawled on the paper.
  29. flourish
    an ornamental embellishment in writing
    Then she’d use parsley to make it fancy, except she tore off parts of the parsley so that it looked more like a little flourish.
  30. sustain
    supply with necessities and support
    I had memorized this from Wikipedia: “Death is the permanent termination of the biological functions that sustain a living organism.”
  31. furnish
    provide with objects or articles that make a room usable
    There were four floors, with balconies, and the insides were furnished.
  32. commotion
    a disorderly outburst or tumult
    I woke up to a commotion. A big rig had arrived with the employee camper.
  33. trudge
    walk heavily and firmly, as when weary, or through mud
    I usually liked to take a shower before bed, but I was so tired, I thought I’d be able to fall asleep without being clean. The rest of my family trudged in together.
  34. critical
    marked by a tendency to find and call attention to flaws
    Obaachan eyed her bed critically, then pushed at it a couple of times with her hand.
  35. exasperated
    greatly annoyed; out of patience
    “Well, do you want anything else before I get back in bed?” I asked, exasperated.
Created on Tue Mar 22 09:48:06 EDT 2022 (updated Fri Apr 01 14:32:48 EDT 2022)

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