Before We Were Free
10 best books like Before We Were Free (Julia Alvarez): Harvesting Hope: The Story of Cesar Chavez, The Composition, An Island Like You: Stories of the Barrio, The Tequila Worm, Cuba 15, Behind the Mountains, Sammy and Juliana in Hollywood, Parrot in the Oven: Mi Vida, Diego: Bigger Than Life, My Name is Gabito / Me llamo Gabito: The Life of Gabriel García Márquez
| Author | Kathleen Krull |
| ISBN | 0152014373 |
Cesar Chavez is known as one of America's greatest civil rights leaders. When he led a 340-mile peaceful protest march through California, he ignited a cause and improved the lives of thousands of migrant farmworkers. But Cesar wasn't always a leader. As a boy, he was shy and teased at school. His family...
| Author | Antonio Skármeta |
| ISBN | 0888995504 |
Winner of the UNESCO Tolerance Awarda and the Jane Addams Children's Book Award, and an Americas Award Commended Title
Life is simple for Pedro -- he goes to school, does his homework and, most importantly, plays soccer. But when the soldiers come and take his friend Daniel's father away, things...
Judith Ortiz Cofer is probably the best-known Puerto Rican author of young adult literature, and the stories in An Island Like You frequently appear in high school readers although the book itself is no longer in print. Upon seeing the title, you might think you were holding in your hands a book set entirely...
| Author | Viola Canales |
| ISBN | 0375840893 |
Sofia comes from a family of storytellers. Here are her tales of growing up in the barrio, full of the magic and mystery of family traditions: making Easter cascarones, celebrating el Dia de los Muertos, preparing for quincea–era, rejoicing in the Christmas nacimiento, and curing homesickness...
| Author | Nancy Osa |
| ISBN | 0385732333 |
Violet Paz has just turned 15, a pivotal birthday in the eyes of her Cuban grandmother. Fifteen is the age when a girl enters womanhood, traditionally celebrating the occasion with a quinceañero. But while Violet is half Cuban, she’s also half Polish, and more importantly, she feels 100% American....
First Person Fiction is dedicated to the immigrant experience in modern America. In "Behind the Mountains" Edwidge Danticat tells the story of Celiane and her family's struggles in Haiti and New York.
It is election time in Haiti, and bombs are going off in the capital city of Port-au-Prince....
| Author | Benjamin Alire Sáenz |
| ISBN | 0060843748 |
The Hollywood where Sammy Santos lives is not one of glitz and glitter, but a barrio at the edge of a small New Mexico town. In the summer before his senior year, Sammy falls in love with the beautiful, independent, and intensely vulnerable Juliana. Sammy's chronicle of his senior year is both a love story...
| Author | Victor Martinez |
| ISBN | 0064471861 |
Dad believed people were like money. You could be a thousand-dollar person or a hundred-dollar person – even a ten-, five-, or one-dollar person. Below that, everybody was just nickels and dimes. To my dad, we were pennies.
Fourteen-year old Manny Hernandez wants to be more than just a penny....
| Author | Carmen T. Bernier-Grand |
| ISBN | 0761453830 |
Carmen T. Bernier-Grand's inspiring free verse and David Diaz's vivid paintings capture the defining moments and emotions of Diego Rivera's tumultuous life, including his stormy relationship with artist Frida Kahlo and his passion for his art. Rivera's energy, physique, love for women, and work...
| Author | Monica Brown |
| ISBN | 0873589084 |
Can you imagine a shipwrecked sailor living on air and seaweed for eight days? Can you imagine a trail of yellow butterflies fluttering their wings to songs of love? Once, there was a little boy named Gabito who could. Gabriel García Márquez is perhaps one of the most brilliant writers of our time. He...
| Author | Yuyi Morales |
| ISBN | 0811837580 |
In this original trickster tale, Senor Calavera arrives unexpectedly at Grandma Beetle's door. He requests that she leave with him right away. "Just a minute," Grandma Beetle tells him. She still has one house to sweep, two pots of tea to boil, three pounds of corn to make into tortillas -- and that's...
| Author | Marisa Montes |
| ISBN | 0805074295 |
Follow los monstruos and los esqueletos to the Halloween party
Under October's luna, full and bright, the monsters are throwing a ball in the Haunted Hall. Las brujas come on their broomsticks. Los muertos rise from their coffins to join in the fun. Los esqueletos rattle their bones as they...
| Author | Tony Johnston |
| ISBN | 0152163301 |
Winner of a 2010 Pura Belpre Illustrator Honor!
Abuelita’s hair is the color of salt. Her face is as crinkled as a dried chile. She booms out words as wild as blossoms blooming. She stuffs her carcacha—her jalopy—with all the things she needs: a plumed snake, a castle, a skeleton, and more....
| Author | Margarita Engle |
| ISBN | 0805086749 |
It is 1896. Cuba has fought three wars for independence and still is not free. People have been rounded up in reconcentration camps with too little food and too much illness. Rosa is a nurse, but she dares not go to the camps. So she turns hidden caves into hospitals for those who know how to find her.
Black,...
| Author | Ann Cameron |
| ISBN | 0440420520 |
Colibri by Ann Cameron presented itself almost like an autobiography given by its main character Tzunun, (nicknamed is Colibri). She is kidnapped at the age of four from her parents and is now about 12 years old. Her caretaker is an individual she calls “uncle”. He told her he found her on the street...
| Author | Pat Mora |
| ISBN | 0375823379 |
Doña Flor is a giant woman who lives in a puebla with lots of families. She loves her neighbors–she lets the children use her flowers for trumpets, and the families use her leftover tortillas for rafts. So when a huge puma is terrifying the village, of course Flor is the one to investigate.
...
| Author | Lucia M. Gonzalez |
| ISBN | 0892392223 |
It is the winter of 1929, and cousins Hildamar and Santiago have just moved to enormous, chilly New York from their native Puerto Rico. As Three Kings' Day approaches, Hildamar and Santiago mourn the loss of their sunny home and wonder about their future in their adopted city. But when a storyteller and...
Yara Garcia and her family live a middle-class life in Havana, Cuba. But in 1967, as Communist ruler Fidel Castro tightens his hold on Cuba, the Garcias, who do not share the political beliefs of the Communist Party, are forced to flee to Miami, Florida. There, Yara encounters a strange land with foreign...
| Author | Nancy Andrews-Goebel |
| ISBN | 1584300388 |
Juan Quezada is the premier potter in Mexico. With local materials and the primitive methods of the Casas Grandes people -- including using human hair to make brushes and cow manure to feed the flames that fire his pots -- Juan creates stunning pots in the traditional style. Each is a work of art unlike...
| Author | Francisco Jiménez |
| ISBN | 0618342486 |
At the age of fourteen, Francisco Jiménez, together with his older brother Roberto and his mother, are caught by la migra. Forced to leave their home in California, the entire family travels all night for twenty hours by bus, arriving at the U.S. and Mexican border in Nogales, Arizona. In the months...
