Product Description

The Borrowers live in the secret places of quiet old houses; behind the mantelpiece, inside the harpsichord, under the kitchen clock. They own nothing, borrow everything, and think that human beings were invented just to do the dirty work. Arrietty's father, Pod, was an expert Borrower. He could scale curtains using a hatpin, and bring back a doll's teacup without breaking it. Girls weren't supposed to go borrowing but as Arrietty was an only child her father broke the rule, and then something happened which changed their lives. She made friends with the human boy living in the house...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5106 in Books
• Published on: 2003-03-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Anyone who has ever entertained the notion of "little people" living furtively among us will adore this artfully spun classic. The Borrowers--a Carnegie Medal winner, a Lewis Carroll Shelf Award book, and an ALA Distinguished Book--has stolen the hearts of thousands of readers since its 1953 publication. Mary Norton (1903-1993) creates a make-believe world in which tiny people live hidden from humankind beneath the floorboards of a quiet country house in England.

Pod, Homily and daughter Arrietty of the diminutive Clock family fit out their subterranean quarters with the titbits and trinkets they've "borrowed" from "human beans", employing matchboxes for storage and postage stamps for paintings. Readers will delight in the resourceful way the Borrowers recycle household objects. For example, "Homily had made her a small pair of Turkish bloomers from two glove fingers for 'knocking about in the mornings.'"

The persistent pilfering goes undetected until a boy (with a ferret!) comes to live in the country house. Curiosity drives Arrietty to commit the worst mistake a Borrower can make: she allows herself to be seen. This engaging, sometimes hair-raisingly suspenseful adventure is recounted in the kind, eloquent voice of narrator Mrs May, whose brother might--just might--have seen an actual Borrower in the country house many years ago. (Ages 9 to 12)

Review
This is a fine fantasy about tiny people who live under the floorboards and account for the mysterious disappearance of safety pins and boxes of matches. However, when the big people are threatened with eviction it is the Borrowers who must thwart the baddies, which they do with much ingenuity and vigour, and save the house. This was the 1952 winner of the Carnegie Medal and it has lost none of its charm. The numerous dramatized versions for television and a highly successful film are testament to its huge popularity with today's children. (10 yrs +) The Godfather (Kirkus UK)

This perfectly grand fairy story- an English import that won the Carnegie Medal for being the most outstanding children's book in 1952- has the qualities of imaginativeness and the breath of life itself that will endear it to the hearts of all-perhaps in the same way as the Mary Poppins stories. It is about the borrowers, a species of small people who are dying out because of the disappearing conditions under which they can thrive. For their "Borrowing" they need quiet old houses whose inmates live in such a way that they will let a family like Pod, Homily and Arrietty Clock, about the size of a pair of scissors, bo about collecting their needs without being seen. Kate, a modern girl, learns about them from old Mrs. May whose brother went to the country when he was a boy, met Pod, Homily and Arrietty and tried his best to save their home behind the old grandfather clock from the ruinous clutches of the housekeeper. Ultimately the best he can do is to help them escape to the fields- a precarious but not hopeless fate for them. A delightful land of maybe and the richness of detail and character study in Beth, and Joe Krush's drawings will have even the most doubtful hunting high and low. (Kirkus Reviews)

About the Author
Mary Norton was born in 1903 and brought up in a house in Bedfordshire, which was to become the setting for The Borrowers. First published in 1952, The Borrowers was an imediate success, winning the Library Association's Carnegie Medal. There followed four more Borrowers books: The Borrowers Afield (1955), The Borrowers Afloat (1959), The Borrowers Aloft (1961) and The Borrowers Avenged (1982). Poor Stainless was the last Borrowers story Mary Norton wrote. She died in 1992.