Before We Were Free

   Well, even though I am reading Goodnight Mister Tom, Mrs. Deu gave us a book called Before We Were Free by Julia Alvarez. I've just started reading the book but I see a few semi-big connection between the main character and me on the first page. Anita is the main character and she is from the Dominican Republic, and she is going to an American school in the Dominican Republic.
 
   The first thing I see is that she is a girl who is not from America but attends an American school. I go to the American International School of Cyprus, and I'm Turkish Cypriot. Also, she says in the book "we are preparing skits for Thanksgiving, two weeks away. Although the Pilgrims never came to the Dominican Republic, we are attending the American School, so we have to celebrate American holidays". At this school, we do things like that. In the past few years, we've celebrated Halloween, Christmas, Thanksgiving, etc.
  
   Another thing that we have in common is that Anita describes the day in the Dominican Republic as "it's a hot, muggy afternoon. I feel lazy and bored. Outside the window, the palm trees are absolutely still. Not even a breeze". In the summertime in Cyprus, it is always boiling! The air always feels sticky and hot. There is sometimes no wind outside and it feels like the Sahara Desert. However, it is great to go swimming at the beach here :)

   Also, a text-to-text connection that I have is from this book to one of the stories that we read from out vocabulary book in English. I remember it being in the Dominican Republic, two girls having to leave their classroom, their class practicing for Thanksgiving, and I remember the name Alvarez.....=D.

   Even though, I am going to have to read this book for Social Studies class, it sounds really interesting. Right now, Anita's cousin has to go and everyone isn't sure why. When her cousin started packing up her bag, the teacher pointed to things that Carla (her cousin) usually keeps in her desk until the end of the year (like a locker) and said "aren't those yours?" I'm interested to find out what's going to happen to Carla.