Pod, Homily, and Arrietty Clock - the family of tiny Borrowers - think they have at last found an ideal home. They've moved into a house in a miniature village built as a hobby by a retired railroad man. The village is just the perfect size for Borrowers, and after the hardships they've faced, the Clocks gratefully settle into the luxury of having a "proper" house. The easy life makes them careless.

Or rather, it makes Arrietty careless. She befriends a "human bean, " and the next thing Arrietty knows, she and her family have been kidnapped. Their captors are a greedy married couple, called the Platters, who have big plans for the little people. They have created their own miniature village in a glass case and plan to imprison the Borrowers within - like animals in a zoo - for the rest of their lives.

Mary Norton was one of my all time favorite authors as a child and I am pleased to say that her books stand the test of time as I still enjoy them as an adult. I find her premise to be super creative and well thought out and I really like her characters. I think the books are wonderful and I also think you should never watch the movie as it's awful and shouldn't even share a name with the novels. ( )

A cute addition to the series. The Borrowers have made it to Little Fordham. We get a bit of backstory about the maker of the tiny town and of course there's a baddie making a town of his own. The Borrowers get Borrowernapped, they learn how to make a balloon, and they soar back home.

There's a lot to like about this series, especially the miniature worlds and how the Borrowers can use any manner of things in ways we never intended them. It's a fun world.

Worth the read. One more, onward! ( )

After being uprooted to escape danger more than once, the little Clock family—Pod, Homily, and their teenaged daughter Arrietty—have been settling into a comfortable life of borrowing in a miniature village. But a few human beings' interest in the Clocks puts the family back in jeopardy in The Borrowers Aloft by author Mary Norton.

While I enjoyed the first two Borrowers' books and two Borrowers' movies back in my childhood, this is my first time reading this far into this classic children's fantasy series. I think it's my fondness for the characters, rather than the story, that made me like this fourth book as much as I did.

I got a bit tired during the early chapters with humans talking about the borrowers; the story's focus could have turned to the borrowers themselves sooner. I was also a little disappointed about not getting to see Spiller until quite late in the book, though his significance concerning Arrietty snaps up a couple of notches. And the ending is a calm cliffhanger, not exactly a happy one, with a tearful (redundant?) promise from Arrietty that I found dissatisfying, anticlimactic, and maybe pointless.

Even so, it's great how the Clocks work together, all three using their heads for the escape they need to make. Plus, I always like the thought-provoking tidbits in their conversations and reflections that truly show their borrower ideology. (Like, the fact that humans hunt humans absolutely appalls borrowers, which I 1000% understand.)

I'm hoping for a fulfilling series conclusion in the next and last book.
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Update after reading The Borrowers Avenged, the fifth and last book of the series:

I'd recommend either getting your hands on an original copy of Book Four, The Borrowers Aloft, or finding Book Four's original conclusion online somewhere. Then let that original ending be The End.

A few more of my thoughts are here. ( )

Another solid entry in the saga. I found this and its immediate predecessor to be much stronger, much more engaging than the first two. I love the ingenuity the borrowers show, I adore that Pod listens to Arrietty with respect and admiration, and Spiller is almost (dare I say it?) sweet. Homily is a pain, but in a realistic way. ( )