• About this Book
• About the Author
• Read an Excerpt
• Teacher's Guide

Written by Sonia Nazario

• Format: Trade Paperback, 336 pages
• Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
• On Sale: January 2, 2007
• Price: $16.00
• ISBN: 978-0-8129-7178-1 (0-8129-7178-7)

about this book

Common Reading Programs that have selected Enrique’s Journey:
Colleges and Universities:
Bluffton University (Bluffton, OH)
University of California, Santa Barbara (Santa Barbara, CA)
Central College (Pella, IA)
Edgewood College (Madison,WI)
Florida Southern College (Lakeland, FL)
Fort Lewis College (Durango, CO)
Gustavus Adolphus College (St. Peter, MN)
Henderson State University (Arkadelphia, AR)
Idaho State University (Pocatello, ID)
Indiana University (Kokomo, IN)
University of Missouri (Kansas City,MO)
College of Mount St. Joseph (Cincinnati,OH)
Northern Arizona University (Flagstaff, AZ)
University of North Carolina (Charlotte, NC)
University of North Carolina (Greensboro, NC)
Notre Dame de Namur University (Belmont, CA)
Peace College (Raleigh,NC)
Pennsylvania State University (Harrisburg, PA)
Rockhurst University (Kansas City,MO)
Sonoma State University (Rohnert Park, CA)
Valparaiso University (Valparaiso, IN)

High Schools:
Bay Shore High School (Bay Shore,NY)
Bonanza High School (Las Vegas, NV)
Burlingame High School (Burlingame, CA)
Challenge Early College High School (Houston, TX)
Eaglecrest High School (Centennial, CO)
Hudson High School (Hudson, OH)
La Jolla Country Day School (La Jolla, CA)
Middletown High School (Middletown, NJ)
Putnam County High School (Eatonton, GA)
Santa Ana High School (Santa Ana, CA)
Santa Monica High School (Santa Monica, CA)
St. Ignatius High School (Cleveland, OH)
Upper Cape Cod Regional Technical School (Bourne,MA)
Wheeling High School (Wheeling, IL)

One City,One Book”:
Glendale, CA
Laredo,TX
San Diego, CA
Santa Fe Springs, CA
Yuma, AZ


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.

When Enrique is five years old, his mother, Lourdes, too poor to feed her children, leaves Honduras to work in the United States. 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. But she struggles in America. Years pass. He begs for his mother to come back. Without her, he becomes lonely and troubled. When she calls, Lourdes tells him to be patient. Enrique despairs of ever seeing her again. 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. 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. Each step of the way through Mexico, he and other migrants, many of them children, are hunted like animals. Gangsters control the tops of the trains. Bandits rob and kill migrants up and down the tracks. Corrupt cops all along the route are out to fleece and deport them. 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. Enrique pushes forward using his wit, courage, and hope–and the kindness of strangers. It is an epic journey, one thousands of immigrant children make each year to find their mothers in the United States.

Based on the Los Angeles Times newspaper series that won two Pulitzer Prizes, one for feature writing and another for feature photography, Enrique’s Journey is the timeless story of families torn apart, the yearning to be together again, and a boy who will risk his to find the mother he loves.