Before We Were Free - Softcover

Alvarez, Julia

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0399555498 ISBN 13: 9780399555497

Publisher: Ember, 2018

Synopsis

A new paperback edition of Julia Alvarez’s beloved Pura Belpré winner about life in Trujillo’s Dominican Republic. “Diary entries written by a child while in hiding will remind readers of Anne Frank’s story.” —SLJ
 
Anita de la Torre never questioned her freedom living in the Dominican Republic. But by her twelfth birthday in 1960, most of her relatives have immigrated to the United States, her Tío Toni has disappeared without a trace, and the government’s secret police terrorize her remaining family because of their suspected opposition to Trujillo’s iron-fisted rule.
 
Using the strength and courage of her family, Anita must overcome her fears and fly to freedom, leaving all that she once knew behind.
 
From renowned author Julia Alvarez comes an unforgettable story about adolescence, perseverance, and one girl’s struggle to be free.
 
A Miami Herald Best Book of the Year
Winner of the Américas Award for Children’s and Young Adult Literature
Winner of the Pura Belpré Award
An ALA-YALSA Best Book for Young Adults
An ALA-ALSC Notable Children’s Book

“A stirring work of art.” —Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
 
“A realistic and compelling account of a girl growing up too quickly while coming to terms with the cost of freedom.” —The Horn Book, Starred Review
 
“Diary entries written by the child while in hiding will remind readers of Anne Frank’s story. . . . Readers will bite their nails as the story moves to its inexorable conclusion.” —SLJ
 
“Alvarez’s story will spark intense discussion about politics and family.” —Booklist

About this title

Review

What would life be like for a teen living under a dictatorship? Afraid to go to school or to talk freely? Knowing that, at the least suspicion, the secret police could invade your house, even search and destroy your private treasures? Or worse, that your father or uncles or brothers could be suddenly taken away to be jailed or tortured or killed? Such experiences have been all too common in the many Latin American dictatorships of the last 50 years. Author Julia Alvarez (How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents) and her family escaped from the Trujillo regime in the Dominican Republic when she was 10, but in Before We Were Free she imagines, through the stories of her cousins and friends, how it was for those who stayed behind.

Twelve-year-old Anita de la Torre is too involved with her own life to be more than dimly aware of the growing menace all around her, until her last cousins and uncles and aunts have fled to America and a fleet of black Volkswagens comes up the drive, bringing the secret police to the family compound to search their houses. Gradually, through overheard conversations and the explanations of her older sister, Lucinda, she comes to understand that her father and uncles are involved in a plot to kill El Jefe, the dictator, and that they are all in deadly peril. Anita's story is universal in its implications--she even keeps an Anne Frank-like diary when she and her mother must hide in a friend's house--and a tribute to those brave souls who feel, like Anita's father, that "life without freedom is no life at all." (Ages 10 to 14) --Patty Campbell

From the Inside Flap

Anita de la Torre never questioned her freedom living in the Dominican Republic. But by her 12th birthday in 1960, most of her relatives have emigrated to the United States, her Tío Toni has disappeared without a trace, and the government?s secret police terrorize her remaining family because of their suspected opposition of el Trujillo?s dictatorship.

Using the strength and courage of her family, Anita must overcome her fears and fly to freedom, leaving all that she once knew behind.

From renowned author Julia Alvarez comes an unforgettable story about adolescence, perseverance, and one girl?s struggle to be free.

About this edition

• Publisher: Ember
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 0399555498
• ISBN 13: 9780399555497
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 208