This book is part of the Modern-Day Miniature Library, a contemporary collection of miniature handwritten and hand-bound books that has been assembled to celebrate 100 years since Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House was completed in 1924.

Of the nearly 600 books placed on the shelves of the Dolls' House Library in the 1920s, over 170 are tiny manuscripts handwritten by the most notable authors of the time. Together, these create a time capsule of literary culture.

Echoing the process of a century ago, today's writers were again asked to write by hand in miniature format. Their little pages were bound by leading contemporary designer-binders. After being displayed in an exhibition at Windsor Castle during 2024-5, the new collection of doll-size books will be kept together in the Royal Library.

Joseph Coelho, who was Children’s Laureate for 2022 to 2024, hand-wrote and hand-illustrated six new poems about tiny things, beginning with 'An Abecedarius of the Very Teeny'. An abecedarius is a poem where each line is based on a letter of the alphabet. The other poems are 'Tiny', 'If I Could Shrink', 'The Eyelash', 'Pollen Poem' and 'The Itsy-Bitsy Things'. This last narrative poem inspired the decoration of the binding, which was done by Matt Stockl of the Royal Bindery. The covering of beige goatskin has been relief dyed, and onlays of terracotta coloured goatskin have been added with gold-tooling to create little characters who dance across the book: the beings which have been leaving itsy-bitsy items in the narrator's flat. The letters in their round bodies spell 'abecedarius'. An 'A' on the left-hand cover of the book, and a 'Z' on the right-hand cover, continue the alphabet theme. The letters are trapped under jars – another reference to the poem 'The Itsy-Bitsy Things'.