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I'm going to take an easier target, and recommend some children's literature:
The Good Master by Kate Seredy. Written about World War I in central-eastern Europe (Hungary, I believe, but I may be mis-remembering), this is a story about moving to a farm, and then growing up (at least a little). This is one of the books I learned to read with, first having my mother read to me, then jointly turning pages, then finally saying "hurry up, I'm already done!".
The Open Gate by Kate Seredy. A similar theme, but set in the US. (I think Seredy was an American writer, but may have been a recent immigrant at the time of writing) A family ends up buying a farm, and how to deal with it. Another read-with-Mom book.
Both of these books are from Viking Press, at least in the editions we have.
And last, a work of non-fiction:
Three Against the Wilderness by Eric Collier. In 1920, Eric Collier rode through a section of wilderness in British Columbia that had been over-trapped for fur-bearing Beaver. A forest fire swept through the area, and a flood ripped through un-maintained beaver dams. Shortly thereafter, Eric and his new wife homesteaded in the area, and after several years started manually rebuilding the beaver dams. After another couple of years, the B.C. government sent out two pair of beaver to help re-seed the area. By 1942, the area had been completely refilled with beaver, and there was a major flood in the Fraser River valley. The Riske Creek watershed, where Eric was working/living, did not contribute any excess water to that flood, since the beaver dams retained all the extra. My parents met the Colliers while on vacation in B.C. the summer I was two (I got left with Grandparents that year). In this time of greater attention to environmental details, this book is still an inspiration.
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