Flying Lessons & Other Stories: "Main Street" by Jacqueline Woodson

by Ellen Oh
This collection, edited by We Need Diverse Books founder Ellen Oh, features short stories by popular writers of middle grade and young adult fiction.

Here are links to our lists for the anthology: How to Transform…; The Difficult Path; Sol Painting, Inc.; Secret Samantha; The Beans and Rice Chronicles of Isaiah Dunn; Choctaw Bigfoot, Midnight in the Mountains; Main Street; Flying Lessons; Seventy-Six Dollars and Forty-Nine Cents; Sometimes a Dream Needs a Push
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. intense
    having the highest color saturation
    The leaves here in New Hampshire are the ones on postcards—bright red and heartbreaking gold, color so deep and intense it seems it doesn't belong in nature.
  2. pharmacy
    a retail shop where medications are sold
    They sell the postcards at the pharmacy on Main Street and tourists buy tons of them, scribbling things like Gorgeous here and Right out of Our Town and Bringing you home some maple syrup and I can imagine living here one day.
  3. pane
    sheet glass cut in shapes for windows or doors
    I had a mother once, I said into the pane.
  4. erupt
    release suddenly and often violently something pent up
    There are things you're not allowed to say. When I was very young, it was the curses I'd heard my mother use, the words erupting from her mouth but disconnected—too ugly to belong to someone as beautiful as my mother.
  5. disconnect
    separate, sever, or unfasten
    There are things you're not allowed to say. When I was very young, it was the curses I'd heard my mother use, the words erupting from her mouth but disconnected—too ugly to belong to someone as beautiful as my mother.
  6. squint
    partly close one's eyes, as when hit by direct light
    Celeste squinted, pulled her lips to the side.
  7. recount
    enumerate again
    She told me her father spent his days figuring out what to do with other people's money. He likes counting it, she said. And recounting and recounting.
  8. halo
    radiant light drawn around the head of a saint
    Celeste wore her hair out, an amazing black halo floating over her head.
  9. constant
    uninterrupted in time and indefinitely long continuing
    I had learned to keep my hands out of it, but at school, she was constantly slapping the other kids' hands away.
  10. lace
    spin, wind, or twist together
    Celeste laced her fingers inside of mine. The way our fingers go, she said, brown, white, brown, white...
Created on Wed Aug 05 12:32:04 EDT 2020 (updated Thu Feb 04 09:52:21 EST 2021)

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