The Borrowers
Last week, I spent some time cleaning up the basement, in anticipation of the arrival of our Spanish exchange student, Javier, who will live with us for nearly three weeks. He will be living in S's bedroom, but she will be living in the basement: hence, the cleaning. Much of that cleaning involved going through the three bookcases that live down there (two very tall ones with 6 shelves each, plus a short one with only three). I now have three boxes of books in the car, which will be donated to local libraries (schools and township), plus I've already given a number of pbs and easy readers to my friend Lisa, the award-winning teacher who invited me for a school visit this spring. Lisa was in charge of running her school's in-service for teachers of first and second grade last week, and after listening to me natter on about poetry being a good tool to reach kids with ADD and other learning issues, and how someone really ought to do a study on it, she asked me for suggestions of poetry books that might supplement the curriculum for first and second grade. So I looked at the units they studied and made a list. And she handed it out. Here's hoping. But man, have I digressed.
During the cleaning, I kept books that I simply could not bear to give away. Signed copies, of course, but also books that I really loved, whether as a kid or a grown up. One of those books was the copy of The Borrowers that I once bought for S, who never read it. M didn't read it either. But man oh man, did I love that book.
I first read The Borrowers when I was in 4th grade. I will guess, therefore, that I was about 8 when I first read the book, which means that I read it before the TV movie with Eddie Albert as the father of the Borrower family came out in 1973. (The feature film, starring John Goodman, struck me as a bastardization of the book, but I haven't re-read the book since I was a kid.) For those of you who haven't read it (are there any?), it is a story about very small people who live beneath the floor boards and between the walls of houses, and who steal "borrow" items from the full-sized people who live there in order to furnish, clothe and feed themselves. A safety pin might become a climbing tool, a thimble might be a stool, etc.
During 4th and 5th grade, I'll bet I read The Borrowers a handful of times, and the three original sequels, The Borrowers Afield, The Borrowers Afloat and The Borrowers Aloft at varying rates. I think I only read The Borrowers Aloft once, but I know I read Afield and Afloat at least twice each.
And now, to think about the elements that attracted me to the text, which are wound up with the things I recall liking about the book:
1. Rooting for the underdogs: in this case, very small people trying to elude discovery by the "human beans" and/or capture by a variety of animals.
2. A fondness for very small things. Small people, small furniture, etc. I used to have a very small book of poems by Robert Burns that my grandparents brought me from a trip to Scotland, and I really loved it (until, alas, it fell to bits). I still love very small books, by the way. They feel like magic to me.
3. Living in a secret way or place (hideouts, inside walls, whatever).
4. Somewhat related, but a slightly different point: I loved the sense of adventure that was part of the Borrowers' daily lives (not just going about to "borrow" things, but eluding capture/discovery and the way they repurposed items).
5. In yet another related tack, I loved looking at the familiar world from a completely different perspective (that of Very Small People - people who could live inside a teakettle).
6. I liked the romance aspect of some of the later books, involving Spiller and Arriety. Or maybe it didn't exist, but in my mind, it did. Also Spiller? Not exactly an orphan, but close enough. And I really liked orphans, as I said yesterday.
What this book has in common with yesterday's selection, Little Men, from a writer's standpoint: My recollection is that neither of these stories treated the reader like a child. They told you the story of what was going on, and there was plenty of bad mixed in with the good (a parent dies and a house burns in Little Men, and the adult humans who know about The Borrowers tend to be out to exterminate them, plus they face famine, flood, and other possible disasters.
During the cleaning, I kept books that I simply could not bear to give away. Signed copies, of course, but also books that I really loved, whether as a kid or a grown up. One of those books was the copy of The Borrowers that I once bought for S, who never read it. M didn't read it either. But man oh man, did I love that book.
I first read The Borrowers when I was in 4th grade. I will guess, therefore, that I was about 8 when I first read the book, which means that I read it before the TV movie with Eddie Albert as the father of the Borrower family came out in 1973. (The feature film, starring John Goodman, struck me as a bastardization of the book, but I haven't re-read the book since I was a kid.) For those of you who haven't read it (are there any?), it is a story about very small people who live beneath the floor boards and between the walls of houses, and who steal "borrow" items from the full-sized people who live there in order to furnish, clothe and feed themselves. A safety pin might become a climbing tool, a thimble might be a stool, etc.
During 4th and 5th grade, I'll bet I read The Borrowers a handful of times, and the three original sequels, The Borrowers Afield, The Borrowers Afloat and The Borrowers Aloft at varying rates. I think I only read The Borrowers Aloft once, but I know I read Afield and Afloat at least twice each.
And now, to think about the elements that attracted me to the text, which are wound up with the things I recall liking about the book:
1. Rooting for the underdogs: in this case, very small people trying to elude discovery by the "human beans" and/or capture by a variety of animals.
2. A fondness for very small things. Small people, small furniture, etc. I used to have a very small book of poems by Robert Burns that my grandparents brought me from a trip to Scotland, and I really loved it (until, alas, it fell to bits). I still love very small books, by the way. They feel like magic to me.
3. Living in a secret way or place (hideouts, inside walls, whatever).
4. Somewhat related, but a slightly different point: I loved the sense of adventure that was part of the Borrowers' daily lives (not just going about to "borrow" things, but eluding capture/discovery and the way they repurposed items).
5. In yet another related tack, I loved looking at the familiar world from a completely different perspective (that of Very Small People - people who could live inside a teakettle).
6. I liked the romance aspect of some of the later books, involving Spiller and Arriety. Or maybe it didn't exist, but in my mind, it did. Also Spiller? Not exactly an orphan, but close enough. And I really liked orphans, as I said yesterday.
What this book has in common with yesterday's selection, Little Men, from a writer's standpoint: My recollection is that neither of these stories treated the reader like a child. They told you the story of what was going on, and there was plenty of bad mixed in with the good (a parent dies and a house burns in Little Men, and the adult humans who know about The Borrowers tend to be out to exterminate them, plus they face famine, flood, and other possible disasters.