The Borrowers by Mary Norton

Spread the love

Stars: ****

This book was read for the Once Upon a Time challenge and Book Awards Challenge

The story of the Borrowers is quite popular but just incase there are people around that don’t know the story:

Summary: Underneath the kitchen floor is the world of the Borrowers – Pod and Homily Clock and their daughter, Arrietty. In their tiny home, matchboxes double as roomy dressers and postage stamps hang on the walls like paintings. Whatever the Clocks need they simply “borrow” from the “human beans” who live above them. It’s a comfortable life.
Comfortable – but boring if you’re a kid.
Only Pod is allowed to venture into the house above, because the danger of being seen by a human is too great. Borrowers who are seen by humans are never seen again. Yet Arrietty won’t listen. There is a human boy up there, and Arrietty is desperate for a friend…. But then Arrietty is seen. Suddenly it seems everyone in the household is after the Borrowers – except the one person who can help them. And so the desperate Clocks must trust their fates to that most dreaded of creatures…a human bean.

This book is a winner of the Carnegie Medal and is a Lewis Carroll Shelf Award Book and an ALA Distinguished Book. It was first published in 1953 and is for ages 8 and up.

The Borrowers was made into a movie but I have never seen it and other than knowing it was about little people I didn’t know the story line. I liked it. It was nice to read something different than what I usually read and I loved the ingenuity of what they used for their house. For example using a stamp for a framed picture on the wall, a watch for a wall clock, a thimble for a candle and one half of a small pair of scissors for a large knife. Well made.
This post is Copyright 2001-2012 SMS Book Reviews. Do not reproduce anything without permission.
About Kathleen

I've been a nonfiction lover for as long as I can remember. I love children's nonfiction as well and love to share my knowledge and the books I gained them from, with the world. I wish more people would give nonfiction a chance.