The Glorious Adventures of the Sunshine Queen / Geraldine McCaughrean / 325 pages / St. Louis Challenge

The key word in the title is adventure!  When diptheria strikes  and a runaway silo destroys her home, Cissy and Kookie are sent to their former school teacher, Miss Loucien, until the epidemic plays out.  Miss Loucien has joined an acting company, The Bright Light Theater Company, whose summer home is a shipwrecked paddle steamer on the flooded Missouri River.  A mysterious river rat resurrects the boat and a wild, rambunctious, unpredicatble journey down river serves up grand performances, aggrieved gamblers, irate lawmen, a pirate named Sugar Cain, perilous races, and Queen Victoria.  The action is non-stop, the characters imaginative and well-drawn, and the story transports the reader to the past, which may, or may  not, have been simpler.