Tangleroot: Chapters 1–5

by Kalela Williams
Noni Reid has to leave her Boston home and move with her perfect, successful mom back to the family's southern roots in rural Virginia. There, she not only struggles with her mom's acceptance of her, but also the truth she uncovers about southern plantation life and who is related to whom.

Here are links to our lists for the book: Chapters 1–5, Chapters 6–9, Chapters 10–14, Chapters 15–19, Chapters 20–25
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. internship
    the position of working for an expert to learn a profession
    And what was even more awful was that I had to turn down an internship that I was insanely lucky to get. Instead, I’d be trapped in a rural county in the middle of nowhere.
  2. emphatically
    in a forceful manner; with emphasis
    She wanted me to make a public address? Was she kidding? “No thank you,” I said emphatically.
  3. underscore
    give extra weight to
    “Noni, I know. It’s last-minute. They just thought it would underscore the meaning of Stonepost’s history. I agree.”
  4. bigwig
    the most important person in a group or undertaking
    But in college-administration speak, “the board” meant the board of directors, a committee of bigwigs who criticized Mom’s every move.
  5. velour
    heavy fabric that resembles velvet
    My hands ran across a touchable kaleidoscope of fabrics: stiff netting, silky satin, plushy velour.
  6. glom
    latch or seize upon; take hold of
    I’d been friends with Alyssa forever, if forever meant the sixth grade. But Alyssa glommed on to Kendall, developing a hard-core friend crush.
  7. dole
    bestow, as in small portions
    I even overheard the show’s director, a self-important man who gave much criticism and little praise to us students, dole out a rare nice word to the other hired professionals.
  8. prissy
    exaggeratedly proper
    “Where’s my bedroom?” I asked as we stood inside one of the guest rooms. It had a pencil-post bed with a gauzy canopy. The wallpaper was dappled with tiny clusters of green leaves. A prissy ten-year-old girl would kill for this room.
  9. tartan
    a crisscross design or a cloth having such a design
    “‘Latest style of walking-dress,’” I read aloud. “‘Rich gray silk, double skirt, postilion jacket. Sleeve gathered into a cap of velvet tartan, and cuff of the same.’
  10. thoroughfare
    a public road from one place to another
    While we drove down Union Road, she chattered about how it was once the thoroughfare of a Black community called The Gather, another legacy of Cuffee Fortune.
  11. trestle
    a supporting tower used to support a bridge
    “In high school, a friend and I sometimes went to guest lectures and author talks at Stonepost. We’d sneak across an old railroad bridge. The trestle was condemned and it was honestly illegal, but we did it anyway.”
  12. sully
    make dirty or spotty
    When the railroad line was built, folks in Magnolia soon raised a fit about smoky engines sullying their town, and the influential Harper family pushed for the trains to be diverted.
  13. scone
    a small biscuit-like cake, often cut into triangles
    She passed me a scone and a cup of tea.
  14. seedy
    shabby and untidy
    “Mom, you act like it’s some seedy motel. It’s a fancy inn.”
  15. codger
    an eccentric elderly man
    Later, I googled Vermilion Harper....He was some old codger who lived to be over one hundred, born during the Civil War.
Created on Mon Sep 07 21:18:31 EDT 2026 (updated Tue Oct 13 11:35:10 EDT 2026)

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