The Borrowers is a children's fantasy novel by Mary Norton about tiny people who "borrow" things from normal humans and keep their existence unknown. The central characters are the Clock family: father Pod, mother Homily and their spirited thirteen year-old daughter, Arrietty. Published in 1952, it won the Carnegie Medal for that year, and was selected in 2007 by judges of the CILIP Carnegie Medal for children's literature as one of the ten most ...
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The Borrowers is a children's fantasy novel by Mary Norton about tiny people who "borrow" things from normal humans and keep their existence unknown. The central characters are the Clock family: father Pod, mother Homily and their spirited thirteen year-old daughter, Arrietty. Published in 1952, it won the Carnegie Medal for that year, and was selected in 2007 by judges of the CILIP Carnegie Medal for children's literature as one of the ten most important children's novels of the past 70 years.
It was followed by a series of sequels recounting the further adventures of the Clock family.
In all of these, interaction between the minuscule Borrowers, who are themselves supposed to be descendants of the folkloric little people, and the "human beans" (a mispronunciation of "human beings") is seen as the primary cause of trouble, irrespective of the human's motives. Whether the main character, Arrietty Clock, has been talking with the ward of Firbank, with Tom Goodenough, or with Miss...
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