The Borrowers
#3384.03 in the official ranking · full ranking
Books 5 books Status Complete 1952–1982 Reading commitment Low Mary Norton Last reviewed 2026-09-06
Overview
A family of tiny people -- Pod, Homily, and their daughter Arrietty -- live secretly beneath the floorboards of an old English house near Leighton Buzzard, surviving by "borrowing" what they need from the full-sized "human beans" around them. The story is framed as a tale told by an elderly aunt to her niece Kate, beginning when Arrietty befriends a human boy, a friendship that endangers her family once discovered. Across five books, published between 1952 and 1982, the Clock family are discovered, driven from their home, and carried through a series of increasingly dangerous journeys across the English countryside in search of safety. Mary Norton's 1952 original has been read as a quiet allegory of postwar Britain's decline, and won the Carnegie Medal that year; it has been adapted for film and television repeatedly, from 1973 through as recently as 2025.
Cozy fantasy · For Middle grade
Core Canon: Reading Order (5 works) counts toward ranking
The Borrowers Mary Norton
| Work | Year | Internal chron. | Canon | Rating | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | The Borrowers | 1952 | 1 | core | 4.03 (102,302 ratings) |
 | The Borrowers Afield | 1955 | 2 | core | 4.06 (13,094 ratings) |
 | The Borrowers Afloat | 1959 | 3 | core | 4.03 (8,088 ratings) |
 | The Borrowers Aloft | 1961 | 4 | core | 4.01 (4,612 ratings) |
 | The Borrowers Avenged | 1982 | 5 | core | 3.95 (2,902 ratings) |
Core Canon = all 5 Borrowers novels, a single continuous closed sequence published 1952-1982.
Quick answers
- How many books are in The Borrowers? The Borrowers's Core Canon is 5 books.
- What is the reading order for The Borrowers? Publication order, starting with The Borrowers. Full list and years in the Core Canon table above.
- Is The Borrowers finished? Complete (1952–1982).
- How much reading does The Borrowers take? Low reading commitment (estimated from 5 Core Canon books · ~1,086 pages).
- How is The Borrowers ranked? #338 in this site's official ranking, based on 130,998 reader ratings across 5 Core Canon books. See the full ranking for how this is calculated.
Why is it ranked #338?
Ranked #338 in the official ranking.
- Average reader rating of 4.03 across 5 core books.
- Backed by 131k reader ratings.
- Remarkably consistent across the whole series: all 5 rated core books rate within 0.11 of each other.
- Less than 0.01 behind #337, Celestial Kingdom (a finer tie-break level decides the order).
- Below the top-10 average of 4.45.
Why explore this universe?
Well rated · 5 books · Complete · 131k ratings · Ranks #338 overall
Good choice if you want a quick, low-commitment cozy fantasy universe that's already finished, so there's no wait for the next book.
Reading order
Publication order (5 Core Canon books)
- The Borrowers (1952)
- The Borrowers Afield (1955)
- The Borrowers Afloat (1959)
- The Borrowers Aloft (1961)
- The Borrowers Avenged (1982)
Documented internal/story chronology is recorded for every Core Canon book here, and matches publication order exactly, with no divergence to show separately.
Awards (verified)
- Carnegie Medal (Best Children's Book), 1952: won: The Borrowers; For The Borrowers, recognising the year's outstanding children's book by a British author.
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Official resources
Research details
Ranking metrics: weighted average 4.03 across 130,998 ratings on 5 Core Canon books. See Why is it ranked here? above for the full breakdown, or the full ranking.
How do we know this?
Admission: The Borrowers (Mary Norton) accepted 2026-09-06
Sources: (see source tier definitions)
Last reviewed: 2026-09-06
Rule: Core Canon = all 5 novels in the sequence (The Borrowers, The Borrowers Afield, The Borrowers Afloat, The Borrowers Aloft, The Borrowers Avenged), a single closed sequence published 1952-1982.