Anna Lavinia’s father wanted her to have another point of view, so what did he do? He made a peephole in the garden wall. But he couldn’t have known that this new view would lead Anna Lavinia all the way to the upside-down mirror land that lies on the other side of the pond. Here Anna Lavinia meets Toby, who explains that on the other side, instead of gravity, there’s something called “the tingle,” which feels like “the tickle that comes before a sneeze, or the thrill that comes when the knot in a ribbon just begins to loosen,” and allows for floating and spectacular feats of tree-climbing (but mind your furniture doesn’t drift away!). Toby introduces Anna Lavinia to a variety of wonders and oddballs, including an uncanny fortune-teller, a turtle with a jungle on its back, and Aunt Cornelia, who’s never quite recovered from the disappearance of a certain young man into Anna Lavinia’s world a very long time ago. The Silver Nutmeg continues the adventures begun in Beyond the Pawpaw Trees, and features loads of sense, a little nonsense, and more charming verses from Anna Lavinia’s favorite book of rhymes. Best of all, fans of Palmer Brown’s intricate drawings will find every page a delight for the eyes

It all began on a lavender blue day—the kind of day when anything can happen. It was on such a day that Anna Lavinia’s father saw a double rainbow and went chasing after it. And it is on such a day that she and her cat, Strawberry, set off on their journey beyond the walled garden where the pawpaw trees grow, to a place where the buttercups bloom pink and the laws of gravity don’t always apply. Here Anna Lavinia will test her mother’s advice “Never believe what you see,” against her father’s wise words “Believe only what you see,” and just maybe she’ll finally be able to use the mysterious silver key her father left behind when he went chasing after rainbows. Beyond the Pawpaw Trees is a tour through a land as strange and wonderful as Oz, filled with people as delightfully batty as any in Alice’s looking glass. It is a place to return to again and again, beautifully brought to life in Palmer Brown’s fanciful words and intricate, sugar-spun drawings.

Dutch spice merchant Evert Haan remembers his longing for a bride of quality when he learns that Annabet, the daughter of an old enemy, is yet unwed

The systematic production of silver graters for nutmeg, the most stylish of spices, began in the late seventeenth century. A revolution in manners then gripped colonial America, as sophisticated Britons on both sides of the Atlantic began serving punch, the tasty and potent brew of spirits, fruit juice, sugar, and water laced with spice, most often nutmeg. An elegant nutmeg grater quickly became an essential part of "the punch equipage", the key to genteelly preparing and serving this ubiquitous tipple. The splendid collection of 100 exquisite examples of English and American nutmeg graters lovingly assembled over the course of forty years by the late Dr. Robert Green and his wife Meredith is on view at Colonial Williamsburg, the nation's largest living history museum, from May 31, 2002 to December 31, 2003. This charming catalogue features a stunning assortment of fashionable English graters from seventeenth century London and eighteenth and nineteenth century Birmingham, handsome twentieth century American graters designed by Gorham and Tiffany & Co., and more. Highlights include a circa-1680 grater in the shape of lute; graters made of mounted cowrie shells (1680-1720); and a commemorative grater with a braid of hair encased in a glass top.