Border-Crossing From Literature to Young Adult Literature: Comparing Two Versions of Enrique's Journey

• In Event: From the Local to the Global: Literature and Literary Knowledge in and Across Context(s)

Abstract

This presentation examines two versions of Enrique’s Journey, a book based on the Pulitzer Prize winning work of Sonia Nazario. Using critical comparative content analysis, the original version of Enrique’s Journey is compared to the youth adaptation. The differences between the two versions forward our knowledge about young adult literature – a genre, this analysis demonstrates, with the capacity to adapt content for a youth audience without sanitizing that content. All too often, adaptations operate under reductive assumptions about who youth are as readers and thinkers. In contrast, Enrique’s Journey, in the original and the youth adaptation, demonstrates that the border between literature and young adult literature does not equate to a border between a complex world and a sanitized one.

Author

• Mark A. Sulzer, University of Cincinnati