Central Kansas Library System

Needing to earn money after his father's death during the influenza epidemic of 1918, thirteen-year-old Joshua works as a newspaper boy in Boston, one day finding himself in the vicinity of an explosion that sends tons of molasses coursing through the streets.

One warm January day a molasses tank in front of Charley's house explodes and the molasses carries his house from the Boston waterfront through the town.

In 1919 Boston, an orphaned eighth-grade girl plans to head west to become a cowboy until the giant tank of molasses in her neighborhood explodes.