Enrique pushes forward using his wit, courage, and hope-and the kindness of strangers. To evade Mexican police and immigration authorities, they must jump onto and off the moving boxcars they call El Tren de la Muerte-The Train of Death. Corrupt cops all along the route are out to fleece and deport them. Bandits rob and kill migrants up and down the tracks. Gangsters control the tops of the trains. Each step of the way through Mexico, he and other migrants, many of them children, are hunted like animals. Without money, he will make the dangerous and illegal trek up the length of Mexico the only way he can-clinging to the sides and tops of freight trains.With gritty determination and a deep longing to be by his mother's side, Enrique travels through hostile, unknown worlds. After eleven years apart, he decides he will go find her.Enrique sets off alone from Tegucigalpa, with little more than a slip of paper bearing his mother's North Carolina telephone number.

Enrique despairs of ever seeing her again. When she calls, Lourdes tells him to be patient.

Without her, he becomes lonely and troubled. The move allows her to send money back home to Enrique so he can eat better and go to school past the third grade.Lourdes promises Enrique she will return quickly. When Enrique is five years old, his mother, Lourdes, too poor to feed her children, leaves Honduras to work in the United States. In this astonishing true story, award-winning journalist Sonia Nazario recounts the unforgettable odyssey of a Honduran boy who braves unimaginable hardship and peril to reach his mother in the United States. It is an epic journey, one thousands of children make each year to find their mothers in the United States.-From publisher description. To evade bandits and authorities, they must jump onto and off the moving boxcars they call the Train of Death. He and other migrants, many of them children, are hunted like animals. Without money, he made the dangerous trek up the length of Mexico, clinging to the sides and tops of freight trains. He set off alone, with little more than a slip of paper bearing his mother's North Carolina telephone number. After eleven years, he decided he would go find her. Without her, he became lonely and troubled.

She promised she would return quickly, but she struggled in America. The move allowed her to send money back home so Enrique could eat better and go to school past the third grade.

When Enrique was five, his mother, too poor to feed her children, left Honduras to work in the United States. Based on the Los Angeles Times series that won two Pulitzer Prizes, this is a timeless story of families torn apart.

Enrique's Journey by Sonia Nazario