The Borrowers Avenged

Pod, Homily, and Arrietty escape from the Platters’ attic and set off to an old rectory to begin life anew.

Safely hidden beneath a library window seat, Pod sets to work building three proper rooms partitioned with old book covers. In the cavernous brick chimney, Homily cooks on a turning clock wheel, using twigs dropped down by nesting jackdaws.

While Spiller plies the stream in his knife-box boat, Arrietty scales the tall box hedges and gathers seedling mint from the kitchen garden. Nearby in the church, their young cousin Timmus races up the belfry bell ropes, helping guard their quiet corner from the prowling Platters.

“Like her Borrowers, the author is resourceful, inventive, and patient, and her fantasy continues to be totally real and acceptable.”—The Horn Book

• Found Family: Peagreen Overmantel welcomes the Clocks into his quiet corner of the rectory, sharing his wheeled date-box wagon and painting postage-stamp pictures of bumblebees on scraps of canvas.
• Quest Adventure: Young Timmus navigates the churchyard rood screen and swings from belfry ropes, narrowly dodging an inquisitive terrier named Pouncer.
• Unlikely Hero: Uncle Hendreary and Aunt Lupy establish a resourceful home inside the disused church harmonium, sustained by sweet peppermint bull’s-eyes and salvaged candle stubs.
• Bedtime Story: Gentle spirits like the weeping little girl on the stairs and clever miniature hideaways make the sprawling country house a rich, comforting world to explore.
• Also by This Author: The Borrowers, The Borrowers Afield and The Borrowers Afloat.