The Borrowers

Two things recently led me to reading The Borrowers by Mary Norton (ages 8-12).

First, the series and its tiny characters were the subject of a NPR This American Life

story broadcast this summer. And second, Courtney had recommended them to a

young girl who enjoys Enid Blyton books. I was intrigued. As a child, myself, I had

often fantasized that there were little people living behind the elaborately pastoral wallpaper that covered the foyer and staircase walls of my home. I had spent many hours sitting on those stairs, waiting patiently for the 18th century clad people to get up from their reclining poses and walk right out of their tree groves and into my big, modern world. So, I found it a little upsetting that I had never discovered these books when I was young --they were certainly around and have been since the 1950s. Well, better late than never, and after reading the first book, I've fallen in love. These stories of a family of tiny people who live in the walls and floorboards of an old house with a colorful past and later a "badger's set" out in the nearby fields are for any child who adores all things minature (think dollhouses) and has a tendancy to image secret worlds just beyond our everyday routines...

Martha