Friday, September 16, 2016

The Borrowers

The Borrowers. Mary Norton. Illustrated by Beth and Joe Krush. 1952/2006. HMH. 192 pages. [Source: Library]

First sentence: It was Mrs. May who first told me about them.

Premise/plot: Ever wondered why there's never a safety pin when you need one? Readers meet a family of Borrowers who live under the kitchen floor in an older house. Pod is the 'borrower' of the family. He knows the routines of the 'human beans' and can go out and about without being seen, most of the time. He doesn't mind being seen by the matriarch of the family at night. (She thinks she's hallucinating because she's had a couple too many drinks.) His wife, Homily, is quite satisfied to stay safely in her house behind dozens of locked gates and such. (She gives him plenty of instruction on what to borrow, however.) The couple's daughter is Arrietty, and, she is the book's heroine by my reckoning. She meets a boy that has come to stay--recuperate--for a couple of months. They become very, very good friends. She reads to him. He brings her and her parents STUFF for their home. (He 'borrows' freely from the house, most notably from a doll house that everyone seems to have forgotten about.)

Readers learn about the dangers of being a Borrower and 'the good old days' when the house was FULL of families. Arrietty fears that her family is the last living in the house.

My thoughts: This one is super fun. It is also quite suspenseful at the end!!!! I definitely recommend this one!

© 2016 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

1 comment:

Joy Weese Moll said...

This is one of those books that it seems like I should have read when I was younger, but my small town library in middle America didn't own it so I didn't know about it.