What is jim's life in the Burden house?

After Jim gets sick, he reads "The Swiss Family Robinson," which is about an idealized, traditional family that lives an adventurous, happy life together in a treehouse. As in the first chapter of the novel, Jim finds this fictional world much less interesting than the one that he is actually living in. In addition, though Jim is an orphan and therefore has a less than ideal family situation, he is clearly very happy living with his extended family: his grandparents, Otto, and Jake. Jim does not long for a mother and father, but instead rejoices that he has found new, caring people to spend this epoch of his life with.