Plum Creek

Ok, I want to go live on the prairie. In Minnesota, specifically, in exactly the year in which Laura was 7. Everything delights her so much. Well "everything" is 1) the natural world, which mainly consists of Plum Creek and 2) increasing material acquisition. That chapter when they move out of the dug-out to the new house is so rapturous- the real hinges and the glass windows and the two stories and the new stove and all. And pretty much all I remembered about this book from the first few times I read it was the amazing button string that they make for Carrie- Ma had been saving buttons since she was a little girl, and her mother before her had saved buttons as well, and they all went into the making of the amazing Christmas button string. I guess there's not really any way to go back to the world of no readily available consumer goods, unless I moved to southeast Asia or something. But in any case it seems sort of contrived to inflict poverty on yourself just so you will be more excited about increasing wealth. And it's not really a question of poverty anyway, but of living in a world almost empty but for the waving prairie grass, so that you would really have the chance to see a stick of candy for the first time, or nor know what a party was until you were first invited to one at the age of 8, or be delighted with a new dress because the sum total of dresses that you'd seen in your life was pretty small. Oh course, increasing material wealth is not generally considered to be the most noble goal in life anyway, or the best way to achieve happiness, but all I'm saying is it seems pretty good for Laura and Mary.
Actually I just came to the part where their whole crop is eaten by grasshoppers and they can't pay for the amazing new house, but hardships just heighten the satisfaction of success.