The Complete Borrowers

by Mary Norton

Paperback, 2010

Status

Available

Call number

823.914

Publication

Puffin Bks (2010), 711 pages

Description

The complete collection of the classic Borrowers stories by Mary Norton. Arietty Clock isn't your typical little girl. Although she is little. Very little, in fact. She's a Borrower. She lives with her family in a large house that isn't technically theirs- it belongs to the 'human beans'. Arietty and her father, Pod, spend their days borrowing the human beans' possessions- her father is very good at borrowing. He can scale curtains using a hatpin and bring back a doll's teacup without breaking it! The Borrowers are very happy with their life and borrowing ways. Until Arietty makes friends with a boy. A human bean boy. And from that moment, danger is never far away. Can they avoid the great disaster of 'being seen'? In this complete collection, you can join Arietty on all of her adventures! The Borrowers Afield: The Clock family escape to the fields where their cousins live, but it's a long and dangerous journey. At last they find a new home and adapt to country life. The Borrowers Afloat: Homeless again, Arrietty looks forward to a life away from the dark country cottage, to one full of sunshine. The Borrowers Aloft: The family are now living in the model village of Little Fordham - a complete village tailored to their size. All they have to do is avoid being seen by the visitors, but one night the owner of a rival village comes with a cardboard box ready to catch them . . . The Borrowers Avenged: Pod, Homily and Arrietty have managed to escape with the help of Spiller. They move into the old rectory where they live happily until the Potters come looking for them. After a horrifying encounter in the church, the Potters get their just desserts and the Borrowers can live peacefully once and for all. Poor Stainless: Young Stainless, a Borrower boy, goes missing on a mission to borrow some parsley and an enormous search ensues.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member MrsLee
This is one of the books which ignited my imagination like no other. It made perfect sense that there were little people who "borrowed" things. I had the evidence of my own eyes. I had seen how needles, pens, jewelry, clothespins, marbles and many other things simply disappeared. And there was my
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father who was forever seeing "the little man" running under the furniture. Not that I ever saw him, I simply wasn't quick enough. This book confirmed all that I had suspected. Mary Norton has told a delightful tale of survival and adventure as the Borrowers seek to live happily, yet are uprooted and set afield, afloat and aloft! The images and characters in this book are still vividly living in my imagination.
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LibraryThing member RealLifeReading
One of my all-time favourite series!
LibraryThing member sloopjonb
This is one of those books I can't possibly review objectively. When I was a child, my best friends were William Brown, Nancy Blackett ... and Arrietty Clock. I loved the Borrowers stories passionately as a child, and I still do. Their world was so beautifully and vividly drawn (and the original
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illustrations by Diana Stanley were also enchanting) it felt very real. The characterisation was superb, too, and the stories were involving and interesting. I still think the first four books are the best children's books ever written. Avenged is the reason this collection only gets four stars; it was written many years after the others, and while still very good, it doesn't have the same tone as the rest. Maybe the pointless introduction of ghosts and psychic Lady Mullings are the reason why I never liked it as much, or perhaps it was that Miss Menzies seemed to have changed into a different person since Aloft, but whatever, it loses the series a star.
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LibraryThing member KittyCunningham
I loved these when I was young.

Language

Original language

English

Original publication date

1952 (The Borrowers)
1955 (The Borrowers Afield)
1959 (The Borrowers Afloat)
1961 (The Borrowers Aloft)
1982 (The Borrowers Avenged)
1994 (omnibus)

Physical description

711 p.; 7.7 inches

ISBN

0141322705 / 9780141322704

Barcode

615
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