Customer Reviews

The Borrowers

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The Borrowers is a book for losers. Not the modern kind of loser, but people like me who are always losing stamps and pins and pens. The book tells the story of Arrietty Clock and her parents, tiny people who live beneath the floor of an old house and `borrow' the things they need from the humans who live in the house above. A postage stamp becomes a painting for their wall, pins become knitting needles. Even Arrietty's parents' names - Pod and Homily - are borrowed.

Life has never been easy for the borrowers, but now times are changing for the worse. The Sink family in the scullery, the Broom Cupboards, the Rain-Pipes and even Uncle Hendreary and his family have emigrated. Only the Clock family remain, living in fear of Mrs Driver, the housekeeper upstairs. When Pod comes home and says that a boy is living upstairs and that the boy has `seen' him, Pod's wife, Homily, is thrown into panic.

Arrietty, however, is intrigued. While her parents cling to the dubious safety of the life they know, Arrietty wonders about the world outside and dreams of adventure. She persuades her reluctant parents to let her accompany her father on his borrowing expeditions. On her first venture out, she meets the boy upstairs. A dangerous friendship develops. Meanwhile, Mrs Driver stalks the borrowers, full of the sort of cruelty Roald Dahl would have been proud to create. It is only with the boy's help that Arrietty and her parents narrowly escape Mrs Driver's attempts to destroy them. At the end of the book, Arrietty faces the dangerous adventure of emigration.

Like all great books for the young, The Borrowers can be read as an enthralling story of adventure, but also contains many layers of meaning. Mary Norton's creation of the tiny race of borrowers is an imaginative achievement in itself, but she does not stop there. She gives poignance to her tale by telling it through the voice of the boy's sister, now an old lady, who tells us at the start that her brother has long since grown up and died a `hero's de!ath' on the North-West frontier. The old lady seems to believe her brother's tale of the borrowers, and yet at the end of the book she provides evidence to suggest that the borrowers may have been nothing but a product of her brother's imagination. The reader is left wondering about reality and truth. On another level, in the relationship between the borrowers and the human world, parallels with the misunderstandings and confusions which occur between different cultures can be discerned. The uncertainties the borrowers face and their final exile mirror the plight of our world's increasing number of displaced people. Long after the book is finished, the characters and the questions their story raises reverberate around the mind. The Borrowers is a book which will fascinate, intrigue and entertain.

Don't buy "The Borrowers" with ISBN-10: 0152099913 .
This version has several printing defects. 16 pages are clean, words missed!

I've always loved this book, ever since I read it in fourth grade; the thought of little people always appealed to me. The style the book is written in is sort of old-fashioned for today's readers, but if a person can read it, then I definitely recommend it.

It's about a type of people, Borrowers, that are very tiny. They live in houses and 'borrow' things, like food, paper, and basically anything that they can get their hands on. They picture people as giants that are put on this earth to make things for them to 'borrow'... They live under floor-boards, behind pictures, over mantles; basically anywhere. That's how Arrietty's mother and father tell it.

But, in all reality, there is only herself, her mother, and her father left in that one particular house. Every other Borrower family had emigrated to somewhere else... and Arrietty accepts that until one day she is seen by a boy that puts the thought into her head that maybe her family is the last of the Borrowers.

And that's really how it all starts. Arrietty and the Boy form a sort of friendship, where the boy takes a letter to the place where Arrietty's Uncle is supposed to live, and Arrietty reads to him. (The Boy says that he's bilingual, and that's the reason that he can't read well.) And taking the mail isn't the only thing that the Boy does- he also brings the Clocks furniture, food, and other things.

Things which are discovered missing later.

And that brings in the cat and the rat-catchers...

One of my favorite childrens' books; I think the reason I like it so much is that it doesn't take for granted that kids wouldn't be able to understand a longer book... I think that's also what I love about the Harry Potter books, as well.

Anyway, read this. Very sweet, very family friendly. Altogether enjoyable.

The Borrowers is a really good book. Borrowers are little people who live in the bottom of peoples houses and borrow their things. There is a family called the Clocks. There are worried and lonely for other Borrowers! Are there any borrowers left in the world? On day they go out, and they try to find any other Borrowers. Then they run into a cat! The cat grabs Mrs. Clock, and I recommend this book for all its joy and charm, and the author wrote this book for the short people of the world.

This yarn takes place under the kitchen floor of a house where no human child has lived in a very long time.The book begins when a lady named Mrs. May is telling a girl, Kate, about the world of the "Borrowers." From a borrowers' point of view humans are as large as giants. The human "beans," have not seen borrowers since the time of one in particular named Egglantina as it is disastrous to be seen by a human.Borrowers borrow such things as spools for seats,and even borrow names as you will see. The most interesting idea in the book was that Mary Norton wrote about a species that is a logical impossibility.

A must read for all early and middle grade readers. A charming and delightful story of "imaginary little people" who live under the floorboards of big people's homes. Adventures and delightful escapades enjoyable to children! Highly recommended.
Evelyn Horan -

this book is a awesome book because it has little pwople about six inches tall who live under a grandfather clock and they live buy borrowing things from humans like thumb pins and thumb needels

This book is a great intertaining book about little miniture people called the barrowers. Find out about the amazing lives this fantastic book. With creative pictures such as a pocket watch as a grandfather clock. This is a must buy.

The first in a wonderful series that weaves a spell nothing short of Magical! This is the type of book that takes you to that place where anything is possible, even to the point of belief in "little people" living under the floors in your house. Buy it for your child, then read it to awaken the child within yourself. You'll see your world from a different perspective whether you're 6 feet or 6 inches tall, whether you're 8 or 80 years old the entire "Borrowers" series is truly Pure Magic!

Unknown to the humans who seem to rule the Earth, they actually share the world with a race of little people, the Borrowers. Living beneath the floorboards, and anywhere else they can remain unseen, the Borrowers live by "borrowing" what they need from the "human beans." This is the story of one family (Pod, Homily and Arrietty Clock), their life in a spacious home, their borrowing, and their efforts to stay unseen. But Arrietty wants to see what else there is to life, and she is going to see it!

This is such a wonderful book. The story is charming, with the illustrations showing a realistic (if tiny) family. My children loved this story, and even have developed some games based on the story. If you have children, then please consider buying this book for them.