The Borrowers
Beneath the floorboards of a quiet English country house live the Clock family: Pod, Homily, and their curious daughter Arrietty. They are Borrowers, tiny people who survive by taking the things the human residents never miss, a stray pin, a forgotten sugar cube, a scrap of blotting paper that becomes a carpet. For Arrietty, who has never seen outside her miniature world, life under the kitchen is safe but stifling, and she longs for the garden she has only glimpsed. When a sickly boy visiting the house discovers her, the delicate balance of Borrower life begins to shift, and the family must decide whether to trust a human or flee the only home they have ever known. Mary Norton's classic opens a hidden world with warmth, wit, and a tender eye for the loneliness of small creatures.
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What you might want to know about The Borrowers
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
First in the Borrowers series. Pod, Homily, and their daughter Arrietty Clock live under the kitchen of a quiet English country house, borrowing pins, postage stamps, and dollhouse furniture, until a sick boy spots them.
Yes. The Borrowers won the Carnegie Medal in 1952. Mary Norton wrote five Borrowers novels in total, the last published in 1982.
Yes. Notable adaptations include a 1997 live-action film and Studio Ghibli's 2010 animated film The Secret World of Arrietty, written by Hayao Miyazaki and directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi.
The Borrowers was written by Mary Norton, published in 1952 by Dent.
The Borrowers is 179 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, The Borrowers takes most readers 3 to 4 hours to finish.
The Borrowers is a standalone novel by Mary Norton, not part of a series.
The Borrowers is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
