Mary Norton’s 1952 children’s classic The Borrowers is the story of the Clock family—Pod, Homily, and Arriety—six-inch-tall people who live behind the grandfather clock and beneath the floorboards of an old Victorian house. Generations of kids have been fascinated with the Borrower lifestyle: their furniture made from matchboxes and spools, their postage-stamp pictures, the thimble they use for a soup pot, and their meals of cinnamon bread crumbs, sliced roasted chestnut, and—food for three—a single potted shrimp.

Dollhouses and model railroads, toy soldiers and painted fantasy figures all reflect the evocative pull of the very small. Some four million people a year flock to Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry to visit the Colleen Moore Castle, which features a