Travel is an essential part of an immigrant’s journey as many risk their lives during these trips to find better homes for themselves and their families. Trains have been a source of travel in the U.S. since the first carrier was completed in 1827 and for immigrants, trains can be just one part of the long journey they take to get to where they want to go. When children travel for immigration purposes, they are not always accompanied by the adults they know and love. The novels selected show the journeys of several children who have traveled by trains and other means and how these travels away from home affect them throughout their experiences.
Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli
Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli follows a family and the stories of lost children while highlighting child immigration happening at the border. This story dives into how trains have been a means to move children to avoid deportation and other means, including the orphan train.
Through several perspectives, this story follows a family’s journey across the states from New York to Arizona as they learn more about the epidemic that is the thousands of kids trying to cross the southwestern border to get into the U.S. This act can lead to kids being detained by immigration officers or getting lost in the desert and as the family grapples with this reality readers get perspective into how adults and children react to such heavy world dilemmas. I highly suggest getting both the novel and the audiobook for this novel because the audio aspects are just as essential to the narrative as the written form on the pages. Luiselli does a tremendous job of putting readers into the book’s mindset, with all its sensory qualities that bring the story to life.
A Train to Palestine: The Tehran Children, Anders’ Army and Their Escape from Stalin’s Siberia by Randy Grigsby
A Train to Palestine: The Tehran Children, Anders’ Army, and Their Escape from Stalin’s Siberia by Randy Grigsby follows a family as they are transported from Siberian labor camps to a port on the Caspian Sea by train.
Eight-year-old Josef Rosenbaum, along with his mother and younger sister, find themselves being taken from cruel conditions to crueler conditions. As World War II continues throughout their years, they find themselves in a slave labor camp before a southward quest on trains to Tehran, where conditions worsen for them. These children didn’t see freedom from these conditions until 1942, when the Jewish Agency in Jerusalem accepted the responsibility of 900 Jewish children in camps. This novel will give readers a valuable history lesson along with a heartbreaking narrative of the atrocities that occurred toward Jewish families during World War II.
The Children’s Train by Viola Ardone, Translated by Clarissa Botsford
The Children’s Train by Viola Ardone, with a translation by Clarissa Botsford, was originally written in Italian to tell the story of children taking the train from the south to the north to live with adoptive families during the financial hardships of post-World War II Italy.
Seven-year-old Amerigo finds his life turned upside down when he is moved from living with his mother to living with an adoptive family in the north. Thousands of other children travel with Amerigo in search of a kinder life as a devastated Italy is left in the aftermath of the war. Amerigo must choose between staying with his adoptive family or staying with his mother as their new lives unfold around them. This moving tale explores the meaning of family, bonds, and self-discovery as rebuilding takes place both inside and outside the home.
Enrique’s Journey: The Story of a Boy’s Dangerous Odyssey to Reunite with His Mother by Sonia Nazario
Enrique’s Journey: The Story of a Boy’s Dangerous Odyssey to Reunite with His Mother by Sonia Nazario has an adult and young readers version to adapt to all ages. This true story tells a Honduran teenager’s account of his journey to the U.S. to reunite with his mother.
Enrique’s mother had to leave him behind when she went to the U.S. in search of work, and as a teenager, Enrique finds himself searching for her. His story highlights the daily struggles migrants face crossing the border and the complex choices they must make while trying to survive. This novel includes an update on Enrique and his family since the publication to tie in with this beautiful account of immigration and family. This journalistic writing style will enthrall readers with the story’s aspects and the bravery that Enrique constantly shows in his journey.
Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline
Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline tells the story of children who were part of the orphan train between 1854 and 1929 as they made their way into adoptive families or labor and servitude.
Young Irish immigrant Vivian Daly was sent from New York to an uncertain future when she was just a girl, as she went aboard the orphan train. Years later, when she’s older and seventeen-year-old Molly Ayer is assigned a community service position to keep herself out of juvenile hall, they find themselves to be more alike than they realize. This story dives into the ideas of being an outsider in every home entered and the unanswered questions that haunt orphans’ pasts. This read will have readers hooked on the character’s courage and the novel’s message on loss and adaptation.
The immigration experience can be vastly different for children than for adults, but everyone undergoes feelings of uncertainty, fear, and a desire for survival. Overall, human beings want to feel safe and be with the people we love, and these travels are how families can obtain that want for love and security. For any readers, these books can open up the conversation on accessible travel and the number of children being processed through the immigration system and other means of immigration.
Looking for book recommendations on the immigrant experience? Click here.
If you are looking for some nonfiction reads, check out our Non-Fiction Titles for the Enlightened Mind bookshelf on Bookshop.org.
