THE BORROWERS AFIELD

More about The Borrowers (1953, p. 483), this sustains the fascination of that book and is rightfully headed for the substantial sales achieved by the forerunner to these further adventures of Pod, Homily and Arietty. Apprehension mixed with hope was the note on which the other book ended as the tiny borrowers were forced to leave the big house and, lest they be discovered by humans, to fend for themselves in the open fields around the house. Pod finds a convenient old shoe. Homily is ever the patient housekeeper, and Arietty, their child, takes notes on a precarious life and meets Spiller, another Borrower who is rough and uneducated but not without helpful know-how. Uncle Hendreary and his family, another branch of the Borrowers, are around too. They have good days and bad days. Their life, far from being a bed of roses, is the tough one of a doubly competitive world, for small as they are, what they do is detectable and capture would mean caging, a fate worse than death. There are some miraculous scrape-throughs and at last, thoughthey will never be completely free from worry, Pod, Homily and Ariettty move back to the safety of the big house. A serieous bit of imagining that carries the implications of its situation to the full. Illustrated with quite charming line drawings by Beth and Joe Krush.