My imagination as always been sparked by real life stuff in miniature: realistic dollhouse furniture, small porcelain or plastic animals, and miniature trains, for example. 

Whenever we took our kids to see miniature train exhibits I couldn’t tell who enjoyed them more, me or the kids. I love the recreations of entire worlds, scenes from life in a scale where you can see it all, shape the scene. I love the idea that you can build a world. It has a feeling of magic for me.

The best one near me is the Golden State Model Railroad Museum in Richmond, California. 

As a child, I had an attraction to children’s books that featured miniature worlds: Horton Hears a Who, The Mouse and the Motorcycle, Miss Suzy (which I recently rediscovered and realized it is terribly sexist), Fantastic Voyage, Andrew Henry’s Meadow (one of my very favorites), the Lilliputians in Gulliver’s Travels. I love hobbits too!

I absolutely loved my stuffed animal collection as a child and still love stuffed animals, to be honest.

I’m just drawn to the idea of small. 

I used to imagine what it would be like to shrink and walk among grasses that suddenly looked as tall as trees, take shelter under a mushroom, ride a ladybug.

Pixar’s Toy Story has an element of the miniature come to life. A Bug’s Life zooms in on a world of small creatures.

When I practiced different kinds of handwriting as a kid, which I did a lot, I tried to write legibly as small as I could. 

I treasure my Little Leather Library Books, passed down to me from my grandmother. 

What’s this all about? Control over small worlds? What makes miniature so darn cute? Why does Tiny Hamster Eating Tiny Burritos have almost 13 million views on YouTube? Why is there an entire cute culture in Japan: Kawaii?

One theory by Nobel laureate Austrian ethologist Konrad Lorenz is that we are natural nurturers. When animals and things are small, we instinctively want to protect and take care of them, like our human babies. He calls it “Baby Schema.” He says this hard-wired response helps our species survive. It’s why we like puppies with big eyes too. It makes sense to me. I’ve always had a strong nurturing streak.

There’s actually evidence that cute things help us concentrate and perform tasks better. Because cuteness motivates us to protect the object of our affection, it turns us into focused, gentle caretakers. 

Another theory is that we like things that can’t hurt us, and little, cute things don’t tend to threaten us. Anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss suggests in The Savage Mind that “we derive satisfaction from minuscule objects because we can see and comprehend them in their entirety, which makes them less threatening.” (Popsci.com)

It has also been suggested that we connect tiny, cute things with toys and play. They trigger a childlike response that encourages fun. As children, we socialized and learned through play. And we’re never too old to want to play. We remember that feeling of play.

In miniature houses and trains chugging through miniature mountains and trees, we can escape into worlds vastly different than our own.

They also provide us with a feeling of control. Miniature scenes can make us feel powerful.

Finally, when things are made in miniature, it usually takes great skill. It’s clever. And we are drawn to all the fine details. They attract our sensory-seeking brains, provide satisfying stimulation.

It turns out that the origin of the word cute means shrewd, keen or clever. It was a shortened form of acute (First appearing in English in 1731).

I would add that the feeling of play, the cleverness of miniature construction, and the otherworldliness of miniatures inspire the imagination. That’s exciting to me.

So, it’s no wonder I’m drawn to miniatures! They evidently make me feel powerful, nurturing, protective, safe, satisfied, playful, focused, fascinated, imaginative, childlike and happy. That’s all good stuff in my book.

That’s the power of the small and cute!