Adélaïde de Montgolfier 42 min read

Tiny Piccolissima, small enough to make friends with the insects, learns their manners and customs firsthand in a fanciful little lesson in natural history.

Adélaïde de Montgolfier's 1856 children's tale (by the balloonist's daughter) blends fairy-story whimsy with real entomology. Charming, instructive, delightful juvenile fantasy. Read it for a sweet miniature adventure where a doll-sized heroine explores the true, wonderful world of the insects.

In its time

Published in 1856, during the 1850s, fairy tale and moral fantasy for a mass reading public; the sensation novel stirs.

Reading it

42 min read (a novelette, room for a turn or two).