Clementine: "Clementine" by Sara Pennypacker

by Sara Pennypacker
This first book of the Clementine series introduces an eight-year-old girl who doesn't like sharing her name with a fruit and acts on ideas that result in a not-so-good week.
25 words 107 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. bureau
    furniture with drawers for keeping clothes
    Last year Polka had three kittens in my bureau drawer, which luckily I always leave open.
  2. exquisite
    delicately beautiful
    Since I have discovered that the most exquisite words in the world are on labels you will find in a bathroom, I carried the kittens into the bathroom and looked around until I found them beautiful names.
  3. parasol
    a handheld collapsible source of shade
    While Margaret was looking under the bed for Mascara, I accidentally touched her lamp, which is a china poodle with an umbrella that Margaret calls a parasol because she is a show-off.
  4. ideal
    conforming to an ultimate standard of perfection
    And I thought this would be an ideal time to practice pretending to be asleep.
  5. jealous
    painfully desirous of another's advantages
    Then my dad said, “I really think Clementine was just trying to help her. Margaret wanted hair like Clementine’s. You know she’s always been a little jealous.”
  6. common
    having no special distinction or quality
    My dad snorted and said, “Well, that is insulting. There is absolutely nothing common about Clementine!”
  7. consequence
    the outcome of an event
    “You can’t play with Margaret today, Clementine. She’s spending the afternoon in her room, Thinking About the Consequences of Her Actions. Which is what you should be doing, too.”
  8. bristle
    a stiff fiber
    The lentils stuck on the bristles and didn’t slide off like with a fork.
  9. iris
    colored part of the eye that controls the size of the pupil
    “I also have the heartbreak of sore irises.”
  10. arthritis
    inflammation of a joint or joints
    “Actually, I think I have arthritis,” I said.
  11. orthodontist
    a dentist specializing in irregularities of the teeth
    She has an appointment at the orthodentist’s to have bracelets put on her teeth.
  12. glare
    look at with a fixed or angry gaze
    Margaret glared at him. Then she jabbed her elbow into my side and so I glared at him, too, even though I didn’t know why we were doing that.
  13. wok
    a frying pan with a convex bottom; used in Chinese cooking
    We went into the kitchen and I got out the wok. “Nobody invented this trick for me when I was little.”
    Then he climbed into the wok and grabbed the handles and I gave him a really good spin.
  14. coincidence
    the property of two things happening at the same time
    “That’s chocolate frosting. As a matter of fact, that smells exactly like the kind of chocolate frosting that your mother put on the cake she made for her book club, which nobody was supposed to touch. Now isn’t that a coincidence?”
  15. maneuver
    a move made to gain a tactical end
    “The Great Pigeon War,” he said. “It’s time for evening maneuvers. I could use someone like you on the front lines tonight. Someone with fresh ideas. I’m running a little low on them myself.”
  16. artillery
    large but transportable armament
    First he got out the hose, which he calls the heavy artillery.
  17. resourceful
    adroit or imaginative
    “Fighting pigeons is not for the weak-hearted,” he said. “It takes superhuman courage. And resourcefulness and cleverness.”
  18. doozy
    someone or something excellent of its kind
    “You have another battle plan?” I asked.
    “Yup,” he answered. “And it’s a doozy. I’ll probably be promoted to general for this one.”
  19. modest
    humble in spirit or manner
    “You already are the general, remember?”
    “Oh, right. I’m so modest I sometimes forget. Well, I bet I get the Medal of Honor.”
  20. crafty
    marked by skill in deception
    All the time he was muttering things like “Oh, they’re crafty all right. But I’m craftier!” and “It’s a little-known fact that pigeons were the eighth deadly plague to visit Egypt.”
  21. perch
    an elevated place serving as a seat
    They settled on their regular perches all over the front of our building, except for a few who decided to sit on the owl’s head.
  22. fierce
    marked by extreme and violent energy
    If my teeth were pointier I would have looked fierce, like our stone lion. Still, see how mad I looked?
  23. colander
    bowl-shaped strainer used to wash or drain foods
    Somehow, while I was telling them about Mrs. Jacobi, one of them slipped me a colander of green beans and brainwashed me into snapping them.
  24. scour
    rub hard or scrub
    So right after breakfast she took me into the kitchen and started scrubbing my head with scouring powder and saying things I have never heard a TV mother say.
  25. trapezoid
    a quadrilateral with one pair of parallel sides
    A Halloween mask, the skirt I
 pretended I lost, two flashlights, a mitten. A green plastic trapezoid, a “Taking it Easy in the Everglades” snow globe, half a button, Polka Dottie’s favorite rubber mouse.
Created on Fri Apr 28 16:00:15 EDT 2023 (updated Mon May 08 15:56:40 EDT 2023)

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