The vanished land that Astrid Lindgren speaks of is the happy land of her childhood. She remembers the children's games and how she grew up with her parents and siblings on the farm near the small Swedish town of Vimmerby in Småland. She writes about maidens and farmhands, about the poorhouse residents and vagabonds – and about the love story of her parents, which began sometime in 1888 and lasted a lifetime.