In fact, that's how Borrower's get their names the places where they live are the last names they take. Arrietty lives with her parents, Pod and Homily Clock, in the floor under the grandfather clock. The story then shifts back in time, when Mrs. May says, he befriended one of the Borrowers in their home. May tells Kate all about the Borrowers, a whole population of tiny people who live inside walls and under floors, pilfering small items here and there in order to live, hoping the big people-who the Borrowers call 'human beans'-won't take notice. Mary informs Kate that the Borrowers must have stolen it, as they are wont to do. As the two sew, Kate wonders aloud what has happened to her crochet hook come to think of it, a lot of small items around the house turn up missing. Though Kate is a wild and headstrong child, she is calm and well-behaved around Mrs. The novel opens with a (regular-sized) little girl named Kate sewing a quilt with her aunt, Mrs. The winner of the Library Association's Carnegie Medal in 1952, The Borrowers is the first novel in an eponymous series that contains five installments in all, continuing the adventures of the little Clocks as they navigate a big world. To survive, the little family must steal-or, in their verbiage, 'borrow'-from the big family, subsisting on crumbs and castoffs. It is the story of the Clocks, a family of miniature people, all of whom live inside the walls and underneath the floors of a home occupied by regular-sized people. This series is a real delight.The Borrowers is a classic fantasy novel for children, written by English author Mary Norton and first published by J.M. I particularly enjoyed seeing all the British character actors as the villains (the trio of Sian Phillips, David Ryall, and Tony Haygarth is certainly one to beat) and the fact that the miniseries format means we get to see the borrowers actually, well, borrowing and living their lives as well as all the action you'd expect. Sure, this series has dated a little, and the special effects have been superseded by modern-day CGI, but I think they still look fantastic and I wouldn't change a thing. Penelope Wilton epitomises everybody's mother and is a delight, while Rebecca Callard epitomises Arrietty pretty much perfectly.

He brings a real world-weariness to his role as the father of the borrowing family and I love his various asides and exasperated expressions.

Forget Jim Broadbent and (ugh) Christopher Eccleston, Ian Holm is the definitive Pod. This is the series I grew up with and watched at an impressionable age and it still delights today with its simple but sophisticated special effects and the storyline which is full of warmth and wit.

THE BORROWERS is a BBC TV miniseries from 1992 and, in my mind, the definitive adaptation of the Mary Norton novels.

Adventures of the borrowers