Reading Rainbow, Vol. 5: Enrique's Journey by Sonia Nazario

My mother gave me this book for Christmas, and although the story is very sad, it was incredibly interesting, and I highly recommend it. Enrique's Journey is based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper series in the LA Times, which Nazario wrote after spending time following the journey that brought Enrique to the United States from Honduras.

Enrique was a young child when his mother, Lourdes, decided to leave him with family members in Honduras to work in the United States and send money home to her destitute family. As he grows into a rebellious, drug-addicted teenager, Enrique wonders why his mother left him, and decides that the only way to turn his life around is to make the dangerous trip to the United States by riding the tops of freight trains. He is deported from Mexico to Guatemala multiple times, robbed and beaten repeatedly, and lives in constant danger of death or dismemberment by the train's wheels, as happened to many of his fellow riders.

This book illustrates just how incredibly difficult it is for many immigrants, who have little or no opportunities in their homelands, to enter and make a life in the United States. Unless you're Lou Dobbs, you'll love Enrique's Journey.

Enrique washes cars to earn money along his trip, while living in a migrant camp on the side of the Rio Grande.