(You can listen to this episode here.)
For this episode, we revisited The Borrowers, Mary Norton’s 1952 novel about a family of tiny people who live under the kitchen of a house in the British countryside. We were as charmed as ever by the ingenuity of the Borrowers, who have a dresser made of matchboxes and a teapot made of an acorn shell, but there was a layer of darkness in the story that we hadn’t remembered.
Mentioned on this episode:
Other books in the series:
Also by Mary Norton:
Film adaptations:
Bedknobs and Broomsticks, 1971 movie (trailer here)
The Borrowers, 1973 Hallmark Hall of Fame TV special (IMDB entry here)
The Borrowers, 1997 live-action adaptation (trailer here)
Arietty, 2010 Japanese anime adaptation (trailer here)
Also mentioned:
Gone-Away Lake by Elizabeth Enright, illustrated by Beth and Joe Krush, who illustrated the American edition of The Borrowers
All-of-a-Kind Family Downtown by Sydney Taylor, illustrated by Beth and Joe Krush
The English Bookshop, in Uppsala, Sweden and other locations
Independent obituary of Mary Norton
Independent obituary of Mark Norton, Mary Norton’s son
Recommended by Mary Grace: The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Recommended by Deborah: Stuart Little by E.B. White
Other Rereading Our Childhood episodes:
Rereading The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Rereading Stuart Little by E.B. White
The podcast is hosted by Buzzsprout at rereadingourchildhood.buzzsprout.com and is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and other platforms.
You can find Deborah at deborahkalb.com and Mary Grace at My Life 100 Years Ago.
This episode was edited by Adam Linder of Bespoken Podcasting.
Rereading Our Childhood 