Deep beneath the floorboards lives the tiny Borrower family – Pod, Homily and Arrietty Clock. Everything they have is borrowed from the humans above them; even their names are not quite their own. There is just one rule: they must never be seen. Then one day Arrietty meets the boy from above, and the family’s incredible adventure begins.

Originally published in 1952 when it won the Carnegie Medal, The Borrowers is a stunning tale of growing up, family relationships, and making the most unexpected friends. It’s the perfect gift for readers of all generations.

Arietty Clock isn’t your typical little girl. Although she is little. Very little, in fact.

She’s a Borrower. She lives with her family in a large house that isn’t technically theirs- it belongs to the ‘human beans’.

Arietty and her father, Pod, spend their days borrowing the human beans’ possessions- her father is very good at borrowing. He can scale curtains using a hatpin and bring back a doll’s teacup without breaking it!

The Borrowers are very happy with their life and borrowing ways.

Until Arietty makes friends with a boy. A human bean boy. And from that moment, danger is never far away.

Can they avoid the great disaster of ‘being seen’?

In this complete collection, you can join Arietty on all of her adventures!

The Borrowers Afield: The Clock family escape to the fields where their cousins live, but it’s a long and dangerous journey. At last they find a new home and adapt to country life.

The Borrowers Afloat: Homeless again, Arrietty looks forward to a life away from the dark country cottage, to one full of sunshine.

The Borrowers Aloft: The family are now living in the model village of Little Fordham – a complete village tailored to their size. All they have to do is avoid being seen by the visitors, but one night the owner of a rival village comes with a cardboard box ready to catch them . . .

The Borrowers Avenged: Pod, Homily and Arrietty have managed to escape with the help of Spiller. They move into the old rectory where they live happily until the Potters come looking for them. After a horrifying encounter in the church, the Potters get their just desserts and the Borrowers can live peacefully once and for all.

Poor Stainless: Young Stainless, a Borrower boy, goes missing on a mission to borrow some parsley and an enormous search ensues.

The Borrowers live in the secret places of quiet old houses; behind the mantelpiece, inside the harpsichord, under the kitchen clock. They own nothing, borrow everything, and think that human beings were invented just to do the dirty work. Arrietty’s father, Pod, was an expert Borrower. He could scale curtains using a hatpin, and bring back a doll’s teacup without breaking it. Girls weren’t supposed to go borrowing but as Arrietty was an only child her father broke the rule, and then something happened which changed their lives. She made friends with the human boy living in the house…

‘Don’t move!’ said a voice, and the voice, like the eye, was enormous but somehow, hushed – and hoarse like a surge of wind through the grating on a stormy night in March. Arrietty froze. ‘So this is it,’ she thought, ‘the worst and most terrible thing of all: I have been “seen”!

The Borrowers live in the secret places of quiet old houses; behind the mantelpiece, inside the harpsichord, under the kitchen clock. They own nothing, borrow everything, and never forget their most important rule: you must never, ever be ‘seen’ by the human beans.

Arrietty is desperate to be an expert Borrower like her father, Pod. But it’s dangerous work, and girls are forbidden to venture Upstairs. Arrietty is thrilled to be given a chance to prove herself – but disaster strikes on her very first outing: she is seen by The Boy! But to everyone’s surprise, a wonderful, unlikely friendship is formed. But soon the Borrowers find themselves in terrible danger, and only The Boy can help.

Full of wonderfully inventive details and beautiful, gentle humour, The Borrowers is a timeless tale of bravery, friendship and borrowing . . .

“Beautifully written, poetic and almost always alarming, the Borrowers have something very mysterious, sad and exciting about them” – Sunday Times