The Borrowers

Series · 6 books · 1952-1982

By Mary Norton

Books in series

The Borrowers

1952

Beneath 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, 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.

The Borrowers Afield

1955

Driven out of their cozy house by the rat catcher, the Borrowers find themselves homeless. Worse, they are lost and alone in a frightening new world: the outdoors. Nearly everything outside—cows, moths, field mice, cold weather—is a life-threatening danger for the Borrowers. But as they bravely journey across country in search of a new home and learn how to survive in the wild, Pod, Homily, and their daughter, Arrietty, discover that the world beyond their old home has more joy, drama, and people than they'd ever imagined.

The Borrowers Afloat

1959

Pod, Homily, and Arrietty Clock—the miniature Borrowers—depend for their livelihood on the "human beans" whose cottage they live in. So when they discover that their humans are moving away, the Borrowers are forced to find a new home and a new family to borrow from. With the help of the wild Borrower boy Spiller, they make a harrowing journey down the cottage drain in a soap dish and are soon living in a teakettle by a river. But the poor Borrowers barely have time enough to catch their breath before flood or famine or their old enemy Milk Eye sends them looking for a home once again.

The Borrowers Aloft

1961

Pod, Homily, and Arrietty Clock—the family of tiny Borrowers—think they have at last found an ideal home. They've moved into a house in a miniature village built as a hobby by a retired railroad man. The village is the perfect size for the Borrowers, and after the hardships they've faced, the Clocks gratefully settle into the luxury of having a "proper" house. The easy life makes them careless. Or, rather, it makes Arrietty careless. She befriends a "human bean," and the next thing Arrietty knows, she and her family have been kidnapped. Their captors are a greedy married couple, called the Platters, who have big plans for the little people. They have created their own miniature village in a glass case and plan to imprison the Borrowers within—like animals in a zoo—for the rest of their lives.

#4.5

Poor Stainless

1966

Tragedy is feared when the youngest of a family of miniature people is discovered missing.

The Borrowers Avenged

1982

After their narrow escape from the Platters' attic in The Borrowers Aloft, Pod, Homily, and Arrietty Clock return to their miniature village. But it is no longer a safe refuge, and so once again the Borrowers must go looking for another place to live. But finding a new home is hard when you're running for your life. The villainous Platters wil not rest until they recapture the tiny family, and they hound the Clocks' every move. When the Borrowers finally do set up house under a window seat in an old rectory, it seems they have found safety at last - until the Platters turn up in the church one night, forcing the Borrowers into a final desperate struggle for their freedom.

Author

Mary Norton

Author · 12 books

Mary Norton (née Pearson) was an English children's author. She was the daughter of a physician, and was raised in a Georgian house at the end of the High Street in Leighton Buzzard. The house now consists of part of Leighton Middle School, known within the school as The Old House, and was reportedly the setting of her novel The Borrowers. She married Robert C. Norton in 1927 and had four children, 2 boys and 2 girls. Her second husband was Lionel Boncey, who she married in 1970. She began working for the War Office in 1940 before the family moved temporarily to the United States. She began writing while working for the British Purchasing Commission in New York during the Second World War. Her first book was The Magic Bed Knob; or, How to Become a Witch in Ten Easy Lessons published in 1943, which, together with the sequel Bonfires and Broomsticks, became the basis for the Disney film Bedknobs and Broomsticks. Mary Norton died of a stroke in Devon, England in 1992.