Before We Were Free

Publishers Weekly

In what PW called "pitch-perfect narration," in a starred review, a 12-year old girl living in the Dominican Republic in 1960 relates the terrors of her country's regime and the attempt to overthrow Trujillo's dictatorship. Ages 12-up. (Apr.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

KLIATT

In a preliminary letter to the reader, Alvarez, the author of How the García Girls Lost Their Accents and other well-known novels, notes that this "is a story that I would have lived had I not escaped to this country [the U.S.] when I was ten years old." The dedication is "For those who stayed," and it is indeed a tale of what happened to those Dominicans in 1960 - 61 who were not as lucky as Alvarez. Twelve-year-old Anita has always loved her life in the Dominican Republic, living happily among extended family in a compound, but over a period of a few months, as the dictatorship of General Trujillo and his secret police became harsher and harsher, all but Anita's nuclear family depart hurriedly for the United States. Anita's favorite uncle goes into hiding, and her father and his friends hold secret meetings. The American consul—and his handsome young son, just Anita's age—move in next door to Anita's family, and they feel somewhat protected by his presence. But as the underground resistance movement grows, a movement in which Anita's father plays an important and dangerous role, Anita realizes that their lives are in peril. Not even the maid can be trusted, and gradually their freedom is eroded. When the dictator is murdered, the secret police arrest Anita's father and uncle, and Anita and her mother must hide in a friend's closet for weeks until they can be spirited out of the country. Safe at last in New York, they are devastated when they learn what happened to their loved ones back in the Dominican Republic. There are parallels here to Anne Frank's diary, as Anita, concealed in a closet and frightened for her life, tells of her feelings in her own diary. This is aheart-wrenching tale and Alvarez makes it ring true, as Anita gradually discovers what is going on in her country against the backdrop of her own coming-of-age. An Author's Note at the end supplies some historical background. An important novel for every YA collection. KLIATT Codes: J*—Exceptional book, recommended for junior high school students. 2002, Random House, Alfred A. Knopf., 160p. map.,
— Paula Rohrlick

VOYA

In the early 1960s, Alvarez's family moved to New York from the Dominican Republic, a country experiencing civil unrest and revolution under the authority of General Trujillo. An earlier Alvarez novel, How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents (Algonquin, 1991), chronicles the lives of the young Garcia girls as they adjust to life in the United States. This book tells the story of their cousin, Anita, who celebrates her twelfth birthday in the year Trujillo is deposed. Her cousins, sister, and friends leave the Dominican Republic, her school closes, and she becomes aware of her family's role in the underground movement. Anita also experiences the pains of growing up—crushes, arguments with her sister, and getting her period. The novel unfolds slowly. Told from Anita's point of view, there are hints of unrest, such as a visit from the secret police, but Anita is kept from understanding what is happening. Consequently, she is naïve, and her story reflects her shallow views. As Anita becomes more aware of the underlying political dangers, she develops into a more reliable narrator, telling a compelling story. Particularly engaging is the diary she keeps while she and her mother are in hiding, revealing the fear of exposure and the boredom of being locked away. The ending emphasizes the sacrifices and the rewards of revolution. Although this book will take a while to involve readers, eventually the story will hold them until the last page. An author's note describes Alvarez's experience and why she wrote the novel. 2002, Knopf, 160p,
— Mary Ann Harlan

School Library Journal

Gr 6-10-By the morning of her 12th birthday, in December, 1960, Anita de la Torre's comfortable childhood in her home in the Dominican Republic is a thing of the past. The political situation for opponents of the dictator Rafael Trujillo has become so dangerous that nearly all of her relatives have emigrated to the U.S., leaving only her uncle, T'o Toni, somewhere in hiding, and her parents, still determined to carry on the resistance. Over the next year, the girl becomes increasingly aware of the nature of the political situation and her family's activities. Once her father's cotorrita, or talkative parrot, she grows increasingly silent. When the dictator is assassinated, her father and uncle are arrested, her older brother is sheltered in the Italian Embassy, and Anita and her mother must go into hiding as well. Diary entries written by the child while in hiding will remind readers of Anne Frank's story. They will find Anita's interest in boys and her concerns about her appearance, even when she and her mother can see no one, entirely believable. Readers will be convinced by the voice of this Spanish-speaking teenager who tells her story entirely in the present tense. Like Anita's brother Mund'n, readers will bite their nails as the story moves to its inexorable conclusion.-Kathleen Isaacs, Edmund Burke School, Washington, DC Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

A 12-year-old girl bears witness to the Dominican Revolution of 1961 in a powerful first-person narrative. The story opens as Anita's cousins (the Garcia girls of Alvarez's 1991 adult debut, How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents), hurriedly pack to leave the country. This signals the end of childhood innocence for Anita. In short succession, her family finds the secret police parked in their driveway; the American consul moves in next door; and her older sister Lucinda is packed off to join her cousins in New York after she attracts the unwelcome attention of El Jefe Trujillo, the country's dictator. Anita's family, it seems, is intimately involved with the political resistance to Trujillo, and she, perforce, is drawn into the emotional maelstrom. The present-tense narrative lends the story a gripping immediacy, as Anita moves from the healthy, self-absorbed naïveté of early adolescence to a prematurely aged understanding of the world's brutality. Her entree into puberty goes hand in hand with her entree into this adult world of terror: "I don't want to be a se-orita now that I know what El Jefe does to se-oritas." According to an author's note, Alvarez (How T'a Lola Came to Visit Stay, 2001, etc.) drew upon the experiences of family members who stayed behind in the Dominican Republic during this period of political upheaval, crafting a story that, in its matter-of-fact detailing of the increasingly surreal world surrounding Anita, feels almost realer than life. The power of the narrative is weakened somewhat by the insertion of Anita's diary entries as she and her mother take shelter in the Italian Embassy after her father's arrest. The first-person, present-tense construction of thediary entries are not different enough from the main narrative to make them come alive as such; instead, the artifice draws attention to itself, creating a distraction. This is a minor quibble with a story that imagines so clearly for American readers the travails of all-too-many Latin nations then and now. (Fiction. 10-14)