Enrique's Journey: book review

I wandered around the library looking for some good books. I actually found quite a few on the "new" shelf. I now have a great list of books to read now...

One that piqued my interest was Enrique's Journey.

It is the true story of Enrique, who at five years old has his mother, Lourdes, leave he and his sister with relatives in Honduras so she can travel to the US to make more money to send home so he and his sister can eat. Enrique desperately misses his mother, and becomes lonely and sad. He floats from family member to family member, begs his mother to come back, drops out of school, and finally decides that if his mom is not coming back to him, he will go to her. At age 16 Enrique heads off to the US - illegally riding the top of freight trains with dozens of others (mostly children also). Throughout his trip he has to run/hide from the police who send him home, gangsters who fight the migrants, and bandits who rob and rape migrants.

This story originally was a shorter piece that ran in the Los Angeles Times Newspaper, but then evolved into this book. The author, Sonia Nazario, herself traveled the trains that Enrique rode, visited his homes in Honduras, and spoke with many people that Enrique came across in his travels.

This book is really enlightening to how horrible life is for so many others, and gives insight into things that we never realize are going on as we go about our lives.

I highly recommend this book.