Song for a Whale: Chapters 1–9

by Lynne Kelly
Iris is a 12-year-old girl who is deaf; when she learns about Blue 55, a whale that sings at a frequency other whales can't understand, she vows to find a way to communicate with him.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Chapters 1–9, Chapters 10–29, Chapters 30–48
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. rig
    gear for a particular enterprise
    “She wasn’t born deaf like we were,” Grandpa continued. “The scientists who studied her said it had just happened. Maybe she’d been swimming near an explosion from an oil rig or a bomb test.”
  2. sly
    marked by skill in deception
    Even though electronics is a science-y thing, science was the one class where I wasn’t reading about it on the sly.
  3. pod
    a group of aquatic mammals
    The narrator in the video talked about a whale called Blue 55, who swam around by himself and not in a pod like most whales.
  4. plankton
    aggregate of small organisms that float or drift in water
    He was a type of baleen whale—the kind that ate plankton and small fish, not the kind with teeth that ate squid and seals.
  5. hybrid
    the offspring of genetically dissimilar parents or stock
    But he was a hybrid. His mother was a blue whale, and his father was a fin whale.
  6. sanctuary
    a shelter from danger or hardship
    The narrator went on to say that researchers from a marine sanctuary had tried to put a tracker on Blue 55 the year before so they could follow his migration pattern, which was also weird and unlike other whales.
  7. despair
    abandon hope; lose heart
    He understood them when they despaired, giving up on ever hearing him, and when they lamented he would never be able to contribute to the pod.
  8. lament
    regret strongly
    He understood them when they despaired, giving up on ever hearing him, and when they lamented he would never be able to contribute to the pod.
  9. bellow
    shout loudly and without restraint
    Yes, I can, he bellowed. There, waves full of krill. He turned to show them the way.
  10. flail
    thrash about
    Her friends backed away to avoid getting smacked in the face by her flailing arms.
  11. pendant
    an adornment that hangs from a piece of jewelry
    I reached up to the pendant I wore around my neck, the one made from an old Zenith radio knob.
  12. jagged
    having a sharply uneven surface or outline
    While we waited I traced the jagged edges of the letter with my fingertip.
  13. tolerance
    the act of putting up with something
    Ms. Shelton reminded me of the school’s zero tolerance policy for fighting.
  14. emporium
    a large shop organized into sections
    At the gate of Moe’s Junk Emporium, I hopped off my bike even before it stopped rolling.
  15. tatter
    a small shred of cloth or paper
    The set featured decades of dust that had sunk into the scratches of the wood cabinet, and tatters of cloth hanging from the speaker.
  16. static
    crackling or hissing noise caused by electrical interference
    With my hand on the speaker, the vibrations let me know if a radio was playing music or crackling with static or sitting there like a box of rocks.
  17. imprint
    an impression produced by pressure
    So was the worktable, which just a few hours earlier had been piled with electronics parts. A thin layer of dust outlined all that was missing. An imprint in the carpet next to my bed marked where the Philco should have been.
  18. desperate
    showing extreme urgency or intensity because of great need
    I pretended to consider the twenty-five-dollar offer, as if I wasn’t desperate enough to pay whatever he asked.
  19. topple
    fall down, as if collapsing
    It looked like she’d topple over the railing and into the ocean if she leaned over any farther to reach him.
  20. grimace
    a contorted facial expression
    A grimace lined Andi’s face, either from effort or disappointment.
  21. cascade
    rush down in big quantities
    The next photo showed water cascading down Blue 55’s huge tail as he started his deep dive.
  22. muffle
    deaden (a sound or noise), especially by wrapping
    I covered my stomach with my hands to muffle the sound and smiled back at him. “I doubt that. An airplane engine is over one hundred decibels.” However loud a stomach rumble was, it had to be a lot less than that.
  23. decibel
    a unit of sound intensity
    I covered my stomach with my hands to muffle the sound and smiled back at him. “I doubt that. An airplane engine is over one hundred decibels.” However loud a stomach rumble was, it had to be a lot less than that.
  24. outgoing
    at ease in talking to others
    Grandma and Grandpa always seemed so outgoing, so fun.
  25. impaired
    diminished in strength, quality, or utility
    Sometimes the plays they performed were all in sign language, and they’d have interpreters speaking the parts for “the sign language impaired.”
Created on Fri Mar 27 20:27:26 EDT 2020 (updated Tue Mar 31 08:23:10 EDT 2020)

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