Egg & Spoon by Gregory Maguire, 475 pages

Elena Rudina lives in the impoverished Russian countryside. Her father has been dead for years. One of her brothers has been conscripted into the Tsar's army, the other taken as a servant in the house of the local landowner. Her mother is dying, slowly, in their tiny cabin. And there is no food.
But then a train arrives in the village, a train carrying untold wealth, a cornucopia of food, and a noble family on their way to visit the Tsar in Saint Petersburg-a family that includes Ekaterina, a girl of Elana's age.
When the two girls' lives collide, an adventure is set in motion, an escapade that includes mistaken identity, a monk locked in a tower, a prince traveling incognito, and-in a starring role only Gregory Maguire could have conjured - a wise-cracking Baba Yaga, witch of Russian folklore, in her ambulatory house perched on chicken legs.
This was odd and strange, but an entertaining read.