The Borrowers

Deep inside an old English country house, in the walls and beneath the floorboards, lives a family of tiny people called Borrowers. They take what they need from the "human beans" above, whether a thimble, a postage stamp or a matchbox, and they never let themselves be seen.

Pod Clock is the most skilled of them, a cobbler and inventor. His wife Homily lives in constant fear of discovery. Their fourteen-year-old daughter Arrietty wants nothing more than to explore the world outside the walls.

Then a boy, sent to the house to recover from an illness, spots Pod. The family's careful secrecy is suddenly at risk. Arrietty and the Boy become unlikely friends, and the gifts he brings the family carry consequences of their own.

The danger grows when Mrs Driver, the housekeeper, starts to suspect that some creature is living under her roof. Published in 1952, the book earned the Carnegie Medal and opened a series of five books. Young readers get a gentle adventure with an inventive eye for a world built to the scale of a hairpin.