The Borrowers—the Clock family: Homily, Pod, and their fourteen-year-old daughter, Arrietty, to be precise—are tiny people who live underneath the kitchen floor of an old English country manor. All their minuscule home furnishings, from postage stamp paintings to champagne cork chairs, are “borrowed” from the “human beans” who tromp around loudly above them. All is well until Pod is spotted upstairs by a human boy! Can the Clocks stay nested safely in their beloved hidden home, or will they be forced to flee? The British author Mary Norton won the Carnegie Medal for The Borrowers in 1952, the year it was first published in England.
The Borrowers—the Clock family: Homily, Pod, and their fourteen-year-old daughter, Arrietty, to be precise—are tiny people who live underneath the kitchen floor of an old English country manor. All their minuscule home furnishings, from postage stamp paintings to champagne cork chairs, are “borrowed” from the “human beans” who tromp around loudly above them. All is well until Pod is spotted upstairs by a human boy! Can the Clocks stay nested safely in their beloved hidden home, or will they be forced to flee? The British author Mary Norton won the Carnegie Medal for The Borrowers in 1952, the year it was first published in England.
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10 books in catalog
Low fantasy literature for children was profoundly shaped by the creation of miniature secret worlds existing alongside everyday human life, most famously represented by The Borrowers. British children's author Mary Norton (née Pearson) introduced readers to the Clock family—tiny people standing roughly six inches tall who inhabit hidden spaces beneath floorboards and inside walls, surviving by borrowing small domestic items from human homeowners.
Born Kathleen Mary Pearson on December 10, 1903, in London, Norton grew up in a Georgian house in Bedfordshire that later served as the physical setting for her famous series. She attended a convent school in London and trained as an actress with the Old Vic Shakespeare company. In 1926, she married Robert Charles Norton and lived in Portugal until the outbreak of World War II. During the war, she worked for the British Purchasing Commission in the United States, where she began writing stories for children.
Norton published her early books in the 1940s before releasing The Borrowers in 1952. The novel won the Library Association's Carnegie Medal as the outstanding children's book of the year by a British author, establishing her standing in children's fiction. Over the following decades, she expanded the series while raising her four children: Ann Mary, Robert George, Guy, and Caroline. Following the death of her first husband, she married Lionel Bonsey in 1970 and spent her later years in Devon, writing until her death on August 29, 1992.
Norton's writing is characterized by precise observational detail, logical consistency, and a realistic approach to fantasy. Rather than relying on magic or traditional fairy-tale elements, her stories emphasize resourcefulness, self-reliance, and the mechanical ingenuity required for tiny beings to adapt human debris into functional tools and furnishings. Her narratives explore themes of survival, human impact, displacement, and parallel communities, grounding imaginative premises in recognizable domestic realism.
10 books in catalog
Low fantasy literature for children was profoundly shaped by the creation of miniature secret worlds existing alongside everyday human life, most famously represented by The Borrowers. British children's author Mary Norton (née Pearson) introduced readers to the Clock family—tiny people standing roughly six inches tall who inhabit hidden spaces beneath floorboards and inside walls, surviving by borrowing small domestic items from human homeowners.
Born Kathleen Mary Pearson on December 10, 1903, in London, Norton grew up in a Georgian house in Bedfordshire that later served as the physical setting for her famous series. She attended a convent school in London and trained as an actress with the Old Vic Shakespeare company. In 1926, she married Robert Charles Norton and lived in Portugal until the outbreak of World War II. During the war, she worked for the British Purchasing Commission in the United States, where she began writing stories for children.
Norton published her early books in the 1940s before releasing The Borrowers in 1952. The novel won the Library Association's Carnegie Medal as the outstanding children's book of the year by a British author, establishing her standing in children's fiction. Over the following decades, she expanded the series while raising her four children: Ann Mary, Robert George, Guy, and Caroline. Following the death of her first husband, she married Lionel Bonsey in 1970 and spent her later years in Devon, writing until her death on August 29, 1992.
Norton's writing is characterized by precise observational detail, logical consistency, and a realistic approach to fantasy. Rather than relying on magic or traditional fairy-tale elements, her stories emphasize resourcefulness, self-reliance, and the mechanical ingenuity required for tiny beings to adapt human debris into functional tools and furnishings. Her narratives explore themes of survival, human impact, displacement, and parallel communities, grounding imaginative premises in recognizable domestic realism.
The Borrowers
The Borrowers
