Antes de ser libres / Before We Were Free

Now available in Spanish, the book Horn Book called “a realistic and compelling account of a girl growing up too quickly while coming to terms with the cost of freedom.”

I wonder what it would be like to be free? Not to need wings because you don’t have to fly away from your country?

From award-winning author Julia Alvarez comes the story of Anita de la Torre, a 12-year-old girl living in the Dominican Republic in 1960. Most of her relatives have immigrated to the United States, her Tio Toni has disappeared, Papi has been getting mysterious phone calls about butterflies and someone named Mr. Smith, and the secret police have started terrorizing her family for their suspected opposition to the country’s dictator. While Anita deals with a frightening series of events, she also struggles with her adolescence and her own personal flight to be free.

Julia Alvarez es la autora galardonada de De como las muchachas Garcia perdieron el acento y En el tiempo de las mariposas. Sus muy elogiados libros para lectores jovenes incluyen Las huellas secretas, Un regalo de gracias, la serie de la tia Lola, En busca de milagros y Devolver al remitente. Alvarez ha recibido varios premios por sus obras, incluyendo el Pura Belpre Award y el Americas Award por sus libros infantiles, el Hispanic Heritage Award en Literatura y el F. Scott Fitzgerald Award por su Logro Destacado en la Literatura Americana. En 2013 fue premiada con la Medalla Nacional de las Artes de Estados Unidos por el presidente Obama. Es una escritora residente en Middlebury College y, junto con su esposo Bill Eichner, establecio Alta Gracia, un centro literario y finca sostenible de cafe en la Republica Dominicana.