Books like Before We Were Free — picked by fans

This one’s a novel in verse written from the perspective of a girl going through puberty in real time.

Celi Rivera is thinking about the way her body’s changing; she’s considering a crush on a boy; and she’s feeling a little apprehension about the “moon ceremony” her mother’s promised when she gets her first period.

I love this one for so many reasons—but mostly because it celebrates becoming a young woman and standing up for herself.

This book was inspired by the author’s family stories of the Mexican Revolution. When government armies destroy twelve-year-old Petra’s village and home, she’s forced to lead her grandmother, younger sister, and baby brother through the trackless desert to survive. They encounter kindly monks, ruthless federales, and a band of Villistas who want Petra to join them, but she never veers from her determination to take her family to safety and freedom. This is a powerful read, and I’m thankful and appreciative for the insight it offers into war’s effect on helpless citizens, and the enormous courage, strength, and determination required of every refugee forced to flee their homeland.

After I heard author Rita Williams-Garcia speak at a NYC book event, I knew I had to read this book, even if it was for kids. After all, in 1968, I was the same age as the main character, Delphine, and from Brooklyn, just like her. That year, the Vietnam War, antiwar protests, and the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kenedy punctuated headlines.

Delphine and her younger sisters make a trek to California to visit their estranged mother. Instead of meeting Mickey and friends at Disney, they find Mom works for Huey, Bobby, and the Black Panthers! I was impressed with the way Rita used warmth and humor to chisel out difficult social issues we still face today. I learned a lot reading this family saga.    

I was moved by this book about an eleven-year-old girl whose mother has been deported. Gaby is kind and genuine, and her friends are great too. She wants nothing more than to get her mother back and to save an abandoned cat from the shelter where she volunteers. I love how real her feelings and her actions are, and how she grows in the story. And, of course, reading about all the cute dogs and cats at the shelter made me feel warm and fuzzy!

Cristian Florescu is a dreamer and an artist. He’s a seventeen-year-old living under the communist regime in Romania in the late 1980s. He’s up against incredible odds in a country where food and resources are scarce, and the government keeps its citizens under constant surveillance. Yet, his will for a better life drives him to stand up for his beliefs.

Bravery like Cristian’s will inspire anyone. He reminds me that youth bestows upon us some of our greatest characteristics: strength, hope, and determination. Who wouldn’t want someone like Cristian in their corner? 

Another way to ease yourself into historical fiction is to start with books for young readers—like this gorgeous, compelling read set during the Communist regime’s fall in Romania in 1989. 

Our heroine is a young girl named Ileana who loves stories, even though stories can be dangerous (like the one that got her uncle arrested for criticizing the government). Afraid for her life, her parents send her to live with grandparents she’s never met—and still she gets caught up in the independence. 

I adored this book as an adult reader and—bonus!—it would be the perfect thing to co-read with a middle schooler or young teen if you’ve got one in your life. 

Sometimes, you just want to retire and have a nice, quiet cup of tea. And world-ending magical plots keep getting in the way. Adoulla Mahmoud, once the best Ghul hunter alive, is just trying to retire. Unfortunately, the world has other plans for him. Alongside the pious warrior Raseed bas Raseed, and the shapeshifting Zamia Badawi, Adoulla faces the greatest threat yet. One that could destroy not just his favorite teahouse, but the world. 

While there is some good-natured humor within this book, Saladin Ahmed establishes right away with a torture-scene prologue that Throne of the Crescent Moon will be dark and gory. I love the magic system and the Arabia-inspired world. The only downside to this book is that Ahmed doesn’t seem to be working on the sequel. 

This is the one book on the history of terrorism that I wish I had written. Zamoyski spins out a great tale, one that reads like a spy thriller. It’s the story of how early 19th-century European politicians and statesmen overreacted to small, marginalized, underground revolutionary movements, turning them into existential threats to the civilized order.

In doing so, men like Austrian leader Klemens von Metternich created both our modern understanding of the terrorist boogeyman and the mechanisms and justification of the modern police state. Zamoyski is a great writer, and I eagerly followed him down his conspiratorial rabbit hole. I hesitate to say it, given the subject matter of the book, but this is one fun read.

I loved this 2019 mainly theoretical study because of the ambition it reflected and the major advances it provided. Lawson’s distinctions between revolutionary situations, revolutionary trajectories, and revolutionary outcomes provide an innovative framework for understanding revolutions.

Its analytical methodology, combined with some case studies, constitutes an immensely rich and engaging study of revolution, which helped to clarify much of my own thinking on this subject. This combination of theory and case studies made this a joy to read.

I found this comparative study of England, France and Russia an elegant and theoretically sophisticated analysis of three of what are considered to be the “great revolutions”.

It is a 2014 reworking of the 1938 classic by Crane Brinton and, like its predecessor, its great strength is in its comparative historical analysis. I loved the depth of historical analysis of each of the case studies, with sufficient detail to enable me at times to reach different conclusions from the author.

It was also able to go beyond Brinton’s original, in terms both of its historical detail and theoretical sweep. Its ambition, grounded in the case studies, was exhilarating.