Cinnamon Moon

When the Great Lake States burned.

In October 1871 the upper Great Lake states were devasted by a series of fires that killed over 2,000 people, burned millions of acres of land, destroyed much of Chicago, and wiped the city of Peshtigo, Wisconsin, off the map.  The most deadly of these fires – in Chicago and Peshtigo – actually began on the very same day, October 8. In this story, Irish-American siblings Ailis and Quinn, who have been orphaned by the Peshtigo fire, find their way to Chicago where they move into a boarding house in a poor neighborhood.  Treated harshly by their cruel landlady, the pair struggle to survive in the burned-over city. Though the book has an upbeat ending, it does not gloss over the hardships of post-disaster living in the 19th century, when the concept of governmental social services was still in its infancy and even very young children were often expected to earn their own living.