About the Author

Julia Alvarez is the award-winning author of How the García Girls Lost Their Accents and In the Time of the Butterflies. Her highly acclaimed books for young readers include The Secret Footprints, A Gift of Gracias, the Tía Lola series, Finding Miracles, and Return to Sender. Alvarez has won numerous awards for her work, including the Pura Belpré and Américas awards for her children’s books, the Hispanic Heritage Award in Literature, and the F. Scott Fitzgerald Award for Outstanding Achievement in American Literature. In 2013, she was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Obama. She is currently a writer-in-residence at Middlebury College and, together with her husband, Bill Eichner, established Alta Gracia, a sustainable coffee farm/literacy center in the Dominican Republic. Visit her on the Web at juliaalvarez.com.

Reviews

Gr 5-7-After his debilitating accident, Tyler's father is forced to hire Mexican migrant workers to keep their Vermont family dairy farm afloat: 11-year old Mari, her father, her two younger sisters, and two uncles. All but the youngest of the three girls are undocumented. This contemporary story takes place over a year and unfolds from the perspectives of Mari and Tyler. Listeners learn what is happening in their lives and on the farm, how the young people react, and the complexities of the issues. Julia Alvarez's purposeful but poignant story (Knopf, 2009) features the convincing narration of Ozzie Rodriguez as Tyler and Olivia Preciado as Mari. Both performances are nuanced, bringing to life the subtle humor in a taut, affecting tale that brings faces to current contentious issues. Through the two young people, listeners learn what Mexican immigrants confront when making their way to the United States and will empathize with them as they find shared emotions, interests, and ultimately friendship. As a bonus feature, Alvarez discusses how and why she came to write the novel. A fine choice to launch discussions and research on immigration.-Maria Salvadore, formerly Washington DC Public Library (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

After Tyler's father's accident, his family hires undocumented Mexican workers in a last-ditch effort to keep their Vermont farm. Despite his reservations, Tyler soon bonds with a worker's daughter, who is in his sixth-grade class. His problems seem small compared to Mari's: her family fears deportation, and her mother has been missing since re-entering the States months ago. While this novel is certainly issue-driven, Alvarez (Before We Were Free) focuses on her main characters, mixing in Mexican customs and the touching letters that Mari writes to her mother, grandmother and even the U.S. president. Readers get a strong sense of Tyler's growing maturity, too, as he navigates complicated moral choices. Plot developments can be intense: Mari's uncle lands in jail, and her mother turns out to have been kidnapped and enslaved during her crossing. Some characters and sentiments are over-the-top, but readers will be moved by small moments, as when Tyler sneaks Mari's letter to her imprisoned uncle, watching as the man puts his palm on the glass while Tyler holds up the letter from the other side. A tender, well-constructed book. Ages 8-12. (Jan.) Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.