Review:
The Borrowers, by Mary Norton
| Series: |
The Borrowers #1 |
| Illustrator: |
Beth Krush |
| Illustrator: |
Joe Krush |
| Publisher: |
Sandpiper |
| Copyright: |
1953 |
| Printing: |
1986 |
| ISBN: |
0-15-204737-9 |
| Format: |
Trade paperback |
| Pages: |
180 |
Arrietty is a 14-year-old girl who lives under the clock. Well, actually,
she lives under the kitchen floor, but the entrance to her family's
passageway is under the clock, from which they get their name. She sleeps
in an old cigar box, her living room is wallpapered with strips cut from
letters (and decorated with postage stamps), and she keeps a journal in a
miniature book that's half the size she is. Arrietty, and her parents Pod
and Homily, are Borrowers.
The Borrowers is a classic series of children's books by Mary Norton about
miniature people who, at least in this first book, live in the walls and
take things. Not big things, but all the little things: the blotter
paper, the pins, the stray sock, old postage stamps, empty matchboxes, and
the occasional thimble. With these things, they build their furniture,
their clothes, and their homes, safely hidden in the walls and other
secret places, always wary of the "human beans" (as Arrietty's mother
tends to call them). That life is, of course, a remarkable simulation of
middle-class, class-conscious British life, which is much of the fun.
Arrietty's family lives in the home of an elderly woman who's confined to
bed, so it's quiet, safe, and driven entirely by routine. They only have
to watch out for the maid and the gardener, and they keep regular
schedules. That's just the way the Borrowers like it; predictable and
quiet. Which is why they get caught entirely by surprise when a boy shows
up, recovering from illness in the country, and spots Pod on one of his
borrowing runs.
This is technically a re-read, but I read the original series so long ago
that I barely remembered it. Not that there is all that much to remember,
at least in the way of plot. This first book follows one of the standard
plots for children's books of this type (although it follows Arrietty as
the viewpoint character rather than the more common choice of the boy):
boy discovers hidden creatures, hidden creatures are afraid, boy turns out
to want to make friends with them, they strike up a friendship, peril
nonetheless ensues. If you've read many children's books, you've probably
read this before;
The Mouse and the Motorcycle is an obvious
example (and, in terms of plot, a somewhat better book). Arrietty is a
typical protagonist, her parents are silly (and a bit flighty,
particularly her mother), and the boy is, disappointingly, almost a
non-entity.
But you don't read
The Borrowers for the plot. The brilliance of
this book is in the descriptions of what they use, how they use it, and
how they construct their ingenious homes. Norton captures much of the
wonder of other miniaturization stories (the movie
Honey, I Shrunk
the Kids is an obvious example), but takes it one step further into
clever and thoughtful repurposing. The book is full of off-hand
descriptions of how everyday objects become different everyday objects for
miniature people, giving it the same delight that one gets from
descriptions of how model railroad dioramas or hand-made doll houses are
constructed. The detailed (if busy) illustrations by the Krushes help
tremendously with visualization and make the descriptions even more fun.
This is very much a children's book based on an exploration of a single
great idea, so don't expect too much in the way of plot or deep
characterization. It's also not science fiction; there isn't any
realistic extrapolation of culture. The Borrowers all behave like
perfectly ordinary English people without any further explanation because,
of course, that's what they would do. Re-reading it as an adult, I wished
there was a bit more meat to it. But the ingenuity is still a delight.
It's great fun to spend a couple of hours imagining how one would
construct the miniature accouterments of everyday life.
Followed by
The Borrowers Afield.
Rating: 7 out of 10
So I finally got the first laser-cut version of the Silly Wal(l Cloc)k done:
The back plate was cut from a 1mm plexiglass sheet using this SVG. The black parts were spray painted with matte black and inserted back into the hollowed out sections (I should have made pictures of the pieces before assembling; too lazy to do it now). This proved out to be somewhat problematic, since keeping the small pieces (the chin and the white part of the suitcase handle) in place isn t really easy without gluing everything together, which I wanted to avoid because I m not sure what effect the glue might have on plexiglass in the long term.
Another problem was the fact that the plexiglass sheet is white, but slightly translucent. Since the back piece of the clock is black, this caused the white parts to look dirty . As a workaround for both problems I ended up using a thin white cardboard sheet as additional background, where the small hollowed out pieces could be affixed and the translucency of the plexiglass could be hidden.
On the other hand, the 1mm thickness for the plexiglass turned out to be perfect for the clock hands (or feet). I think it would still have worked with 2mm, but that might be too heavy for the puny clock torque and they might start snagging on each other.
Careful eyes will also note that I made a stupid mistake when writing down the dimensions for the back plate and it ended up being slightly smaller than the available space. Not my brightest moment, but it worked out alright with the additional cardboard background.
The next iteration will probably be made with a different two-color plexiglass sheet that can be engraved. Let s see how that works out.
Related: Silly Wal(l Cloc)k
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I ve reused the document 
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WordPress has a nice selection of plugins and given the fact I spent a few days evaluating all the possibilities, I decided to share my own setup to speed up the process in case you are willing to build a WordPress powered blog.
The plugins:
