that other user's brambly hedge ask reminded me of a magical and obscure russian book about fictional hamster-like creatures called Big Kysh / "Большой Кыш", kysh being the name for one of these little guys:
i wanted to live in that world soooo bad. these were MY beatrix potter (next to beatrix potter herself), so tactile and obscenely cozy and the book is like a full A4 format, u could stuff your nose into the details as a child. top tier
they hibernate in sap over winter, they have a little parliament and inter-community squabbles, tuey ride hedgehogs and have micro-agriculture, they inexplicably reproduce through eggs (we find this out when a pippin-&-merry pair of lads find an orphaned egg and raise it into a little baby together).
the whole book is illustrated every few pages almost to the degree as the page example above - give the russian term a search to see more pages (try adding "иллюстрации" (illustrations) too).
P.S. my other enviable tiny world was the Ukrainian "In the Land of the Sun Bunnies" / "В Країні Сонячних Зайчиків" (🌞🐇 = colloquial term for when a ray of sunlight bounces off a reflective surface and somewhere else). these sunny rabbits come to paint your freckles in your sleep and they feed on the smell of flowers
Aw cute! I grew up in a Ukranian immigrant family but sadly 100% forgot the language so couldn't look up any of the old storybooks I used to read even if I wanted to. But speaking of slavic critter art I looove this short on youtube:
And I've talked about him before & I'll talk about him again but I'm a ride or die krtek fan...
