Before We Were Free PDF Download

Author: Julia Alvarez
Publisher: Laurel Leaf
ISBN: 030743317X
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 186

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Book Description
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.

Author: Julia Alvarez
Publisher: Youth Large Print
ISBN:
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
In the early 1960s in the Dominican Republic, twelve-year-old Anita learns that her family is involved in the underground movement to end the bloody rule of the dictator, General Trujillo.

Author: Lisa Wingate
Publisher: Ballantine Books
ISBN: 0425284697
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 354

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Book Description
THE BLOCKBUSTER HIT—Over two million copies sold! A New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and Publishers Weekly Bestseller “Poignant, engrossing.”—People • “Lisa Wingate takes an almost unthinkable chapter in our nation’s history and weaves a tale of enduring power.”—Paula McLain Memphis, 1939. Twelve-year-old Rill Foss and her four younger siblings live a magical life aboard their family’s Mississippi River shantyboat. But when their father must rush their mother to the hospital one stormy night, Rill is left in charge—until strangers arrive in force. Wrenched from all that is familiar and thrown into a Tennessee Children’s Home Society orphanage, the Foss children are assured that they will soon be returned to their parents—but they quickly realize the dark truth. At the mercy of the facility’s cruel director, Rill fights to keep her sisters and brother together in a world of danger and uncertainty. Aiken, South Carolina, present day. Born into wealth and privilege, Avery Stafford seems to have it all: a successful career as a federal prosecutor, a handsome fiancé, and a lavish wedding on the horizon. But when Avery returns home to help her father weather a health crisis, a chance encounter leaves her with uncomfortable questions and compels her to take a journey through her family’s long-hidden history, on a path that will ultimately lead either to devastation or to redemption. Based on one of America’s most notorious real-life scandals—in which Georgia Tann, director of a Memphis-based adoption organization, kidnapped and sold poor children to wealthy families all over the country—Lisa Wingate’s riveting, wrenching, and ultimately uplifting tale reminds us how, even though the paths we take can lead to many places, the heart never forgets where we belong. Publishers Weekly’s #3 Longest-Running Bestseller of 2017 • Winner of the Southern Book Prize • If All Arkansas Read the Same Book Selection This edition includes a new essay by the author about shantyboat life.

Author: Julia Alvarez
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 0375891617
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 267

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Book Description
After Tyler's father is injured in a tractor accident, his family hires migrant Mexican workers to help save their Vermont farm from foreclosure. Tyler isn’ t sure what to make of these workers. Are they undocumented? And what about the three daughters, particularly Mari, the oldest, who is proud of her Mexican heritage but also increasingly connected her American life. Her family lives in constant fear of being discovered by the authorities and sent back to the poverty they left behind in Mexico. Can Tyler and Mari find a way to be friends despite their differences? In a novel full of hope, but no easy answers, Julia Alvarez weaves a beautiful and timely story that will stay with readers long after they finish it.

Author: Renée Carlino
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1501105787
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
From the USA TODAY bestselling author of Sweet Thing and Nowhere But Here comes a love story about a Craigslist “missed connection” post that gives two people a second chance at love fifteen years after they were separated in New York City. To the Green-eyed Lovebird: We met fifteen years ago, almost to the day, when I moved my stuff into the NYU dorm room next to yours at Senior House. You called us fast friends. I like to think it was more. We lived on nothing but the excitement of finding ourselves through music (you were obsessed with Jeff Buckley), photography (I couldn’t stop taking pictures of you), hanging out in Washington Square Park, and all the weird things we did to make money. I learned more about myself that year than any other. Yet, somehow, it all fell apart. We lost touch the summer after graduation when I went to South America to work for National Geographic. When I came back, you were gone. A part of me still wonders if I pushed you too hard after the wedding… I didn’t see you again until a month ago. It was a Wednesday. You were rocking back on your heels, balancing on that thick yellow line that runs along the subway platform, waiting for the F train. I didn’t know it was you until it was too late, and then you were gone. Again. You said my name; I saw it on your lips. I tried to will the train to stop, just so I could say hello. After seeing you, all of the youthful feelings and memories came flooding back to me, and now I’ve spent the better part of a month wondering what your life is like. I might be totally out of my mind, but would you like to get a drink with me and catch up on the last decade and a half? M

Author: Julia Alvarez
Publisher: Algonquin Books
ISBN: 1616200995
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
Celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2024, internationally bestselling author and literary icon Julia Alvarez's In the Time of the Butterflies is "beautiful, heartbreaking and alive ... a lyrical work of historical fiction based on the story of the Mirabal sisters, revolutionary heroes who had opposed and fought against Trujillo." (Concepción de León, New York Times) Alvarez’s new novel, The Cemetery of Untold Stories, is coming April 2, 2024. Pre-order now! It is November 25, 1960, and three beautiful sisters have been found near their wrecked Jeep at the bottom of a 150-foot cliff on the north coast of the Dominican Republic. The official state newspaper reports their deaths as accidental. It does not mention that a fourth sister lives. Nor does it explain that the sisters were among the leading opponents of Gen. Rafael Leónidas Trujillo’s dictatorship. It doesn’t have to. Everybody knows of Las Mariposas—the Butterflies. In this extraordinary novel, the voices of all four sisters--Minerva, Patria, María Teresa, and the survivor, Dedé--speak across the decades to tell their own stories, from secret crushes to gunrunning, and to describe the everyday horrors of life under Trujillo’s rule. Through the art and magic of Julia Alvarez’s imagination, the martyred Butterflies live again in this novel of courage and love, and the human costs of political oppression. "Alvarez helped blaze the trail for Latina authors to break into the literary mainstream, with novels like In the Time of the Butterflies and How the García Girls Lost Their Accents winning praise from critics and gracing best-seller lists across the Americas."—Francisco Cantú, The New York Times Book Review "This Julia Alvarez classic is a must-read for anyone of Latinx descent." —Popsugar.com "A gorgeous and sensitive novel . . . A compelling story of courage, patriotism and familial devotion." —People "Shimmering . . . Valuable and necessary." —Los Angeles Times "A magnificent treasure for all cultures and all time.” —St. Petersburg Times "Alvarez does a remarkable job illustrating the ruinous effect the 30-year dictatorship had on the Dominican Republic and the very real human cost it entailed."—Cosmopolitan.com

Author: Julia Alvarez
Publisher: Laurel Leaf
ISBN: 0307433331
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 221

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Book Description
MILLY KAUFMAN IS an ordinary American teenager living in Vermont—until she meets Pablo, a new student at her high school. His exotic accent, strange fashion sense, and intense interest in Milly force her to confront her identity as an adopted child from Pablo’s native country. As their relationship grows, Milly decides to undertake a courageous journey to her homeland and along the way discovers the story of her birth is intertwined with the story of a country recovering from a brutal history. Beautifully written by reknowned author Julia Alvarez, Finding Miracles examines the emotional complexity of familial relationships and the miracles of everyday life.

Author: Lynn Joseph
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062970348
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 148

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Book Description
Américas Award Winner “An achingly beautiful story.”—Kirkus (starred review) “Eloquent.”—Booklist (starred review) “Lovely and lyrical.”—School Library Journal This powerful and resonant Américas Award-winning novel tells the story of a young girl’s struggle to find her place in the world and to become a writer in a country where words are feared. Seamlessly interweaving both poetry and prose, Lynn Joseph’s acclaimed debut is a lush and lyrical journey into a landscape and culture of the Dominican Republic. The Color of My Words explores the pain and poetry of discovering what it means to be part of a family, what it takes to find your voice and the means for it to be heard, and how it feels to write it all down.

Author: Julia Alvarez
Publisher: Algonquin Books
ISBN: 1616200987
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 334

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Book Description
From the international bestselling author of In the Time of the Butterflies and Afterlife, How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents is "poignant...powerful... Beautifully captures the threshold experience of the new immigrant, where the past is not yet a memory." (The New York Times Book Review) Julia Alvarez’s new novel, The Cemetery of Untold Stories, is coming April 2, 2024. Pre-order now! Acclaimed writer Julia Alvarez’s beloved first novel gives voice to four sisters as they grow up in two cultures. The García sisters—Carla, Sandra, Yolanda, and Sofía—and their family must flee their home in the Dominican Republic after their father’s role in an attempt to overthrow brutal dictator Rafael Trujillo is discovered. They arrive in New York City in 1960 to a life far removed from their existence in the Caribbean. In the wondrous but not always welcoming U.S.A., their parents try to hold on to their old ways as the girls try find new lives: by straightening their hair and wearing American fashions, and by forgetting their Spanish. For them, it is at once liberating and excruciating to be caught between the old world and the new. Here they tell their stories about being at home—and not at home—in America. "Alvarez helped blaze the trail for Latina authors to break into the literary mainstream, with novels like In the Time of the Butterflies and How the García Girls Lost Their Accents winning praise from critics and gracing best-seller lists across the Americas."—Francisco Cantú, The New York Times Book Review "A clear-eyed look at the insecurity and yearning for a sense of belonging that are a part of the immigrant experience . . . Movingly told." —The Washington Post Book World

Author: Julia Alvarez
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 110121340X
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, a “phenomenal, indispensable” (USA Today) exploration of the Latina “sweet fifteen” celebration, by the bestselling author of How the García Girls Lost Their Accents and In the Time of Butterflies The quinceañera, a celebration of a Latina girl’s fifteenth birthday, has become a uniquely American trend. This lavish party with ball gowns, multi-tiered cakes, limousines, and extravagant meals is often as costly as a prom or a wedding. But many Latina girls feel entitled to this rite of passage, marking a girl’s entrance into womanhood, and expect no expense to be spared, even in working-class families. Acclaimed author Julia Alvarez explores the history and cultural significance of the “quince” in the United States, and the consequences of treating teens like princesses. Through her observations of a quince in Queens, interviews with other quince girls, and the memories of her own experience as a young immigrant, Alvarez presents a thoughtful and entertaining portrait of a rapidly growing multicultural phenomenon, and passionately emphasizes the importance of celebrating Latina womanhood.