Books like Anita and the Dragons — picked by fans

This book is a favorite among many parents who can relate!

This book beautifully speaks to children who feel different or left out, and as we know, that's quite a common experience. It shows the courage it takes to share your story and the power of finding connection.

I admire how it encourages kids to embrace what makes them unique and see that their differences are what make them special.

My Big Welcome illustrates how kindness can help children overcome anxiety when they’re starting at a new school, moving, meeting new people. The story introduces a number of classroom situations that a newcomer might face. Emilia, the new girl, is welcomed with warmth and kindness. And the bright illustrations give off such a positive vibe.

This picture book gives off such a positive feeling that it’s impossible not to let it fill you to the brim with excitement and joy. It’s perfect to read with children at the end of the holidays for a gentle but enthusiastic introduction to the new school year. It made me want to go back to school!

We often fear change and it’s for this reason that we don’t dare try something new. We’re afraid we won’t be able to go back to the way things were before in case we don’t succeed. It’s important to realize that the people who truly appreciate and love us will always support our endeavors and welcome us back regardless of whether we succeeded or failed. The Bear and the Piano relates this message in a gentle and inspiring way for me.

After a blogger in Thailand interviewed me, he told me I should meet the author Rita Gardner, “Her memoir is about growing up in a Latin culture like yourself.” Rita and I exchanged books and personal stories, but her upbringing was darker than mine.

The young family moves to a remote village on a beach in the Dominican Republic in the 1950s. The two daughters are not only isolated, but their alcoholic father rants and makes irrational demands while the mother does nothing to protect them. During the light of day the dad proclaims them a “happy family, living in Paradise.” The writing is honest and captivating. You will root for Rita and be flabbergasted at what a young girl accomplishes on her own.

This book once again shows that dead white men do not hold a monopoly on great formalist verse. Espaillat hails from the Dominican Republic, and Spanish is her first language.

Many of the poems in this book deal directly with the difficulties, ambiguities, and opportunities of straddling two languages and cultures—particularly the troubling association with colonialism and imperialism inherent in both English and Spanish (conquistadors, anyone?).

I admire her easy handling of traditional forms—sonnets are apparently her favorite. What I love most is how these poems behave like the poems we knew as children, with satisfying rhyme and meter, while entertaining the themes we ponder as adults—power, history, exile, and language itself.

I find it interesting that this book—her first—was published relatively late in her life; perhaps that’s why it marries the energy of an author’s first book with the wisdom and understanding of an author’s last. 

This book by Mario Vargas Llosa explores the last days of the Dominican Republic's Trujillo dictatorship. I really enjoyed this novel for its blending of historical facts with fiction and for providing a detailed depiction of Rafael Trujillo's regime, its impact on the country, and his assassination in 1961.

The narrative combines three storylines: The character of Urania, who returns to the Dominican Republic after many years in the United States, and shows us the long-lasting psychological impact of Trujillo's rule on her and her family. Trujillo’s last days, personality, control over the country, and the loyalty and fear he commanded. Finally, the group of people plotting to assassinate Trujillo, their motivations, fears, and actions show us that freedom is one of our most valuable treasures worthy of risking our lives.

Vargas Llosa's detailed and compelling narrative profoundly examines how dictatorial regimes can distort societies and damage lives.

I was fascinated by this gripping story about a twelve-year-old girl living in the Dominican Republic in 1960 because, while it is fiction, it is based on a very real and scary time in the history of the DR. My parents grew up in the DR under the dictatorship that was still in place in 1960, and Julia Alvarez does a beautiful job showing readers how young people and their families were impacted by that regime, as well as the bravery and hopefulness of those who fought for their country’s freedom.

Electric, dystopic, magical, queer, Tentacle is the most exciting, genre-bending book I’ve gotten my little hands on in quite some time. Expansive in theme yet swiftly paced, it moves between three different connected time spans including futuristic Santo Domingo. Felt like a fever dream with seriously high stakes, I can’t believe how much world building happens in under 200 pages. Rita Indiana is also a brilliant musician based in the Dominican Republic, I was introduced to her revelatory music after reading her fiction. Her music now haunts all my playlists. 

In Dominican Baseball, Alan Klein continues his essential work to document the country’s relationship to American professional baseball. As he says, Major League teams have come to view the Dominican Republic as “a renewable resource” of baseball talent, a resource they not only consume but produce, through sophisticated recruitment strategies and the highly regimented academies many teams run in the country. Rather than offering easy answers, he shows that the system is one of American power, but also of Dominican agency, of local pride in Dominican success, but also of anxiety about the loss of national sovereignty. He thus provides an invaluable illustration of how Latin American sports help us understand the region’s position in the global commodity chain.