High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Borrowers, published in 1952, is the first in a series of children`s fantasy novels by English author Mary Norton. The novel and its sequels are about tiny people who live in people`s homes and "borrow" things to survive while keeping their existence unknown. The central characters of the novels are a borrower family surnamed Clock: Pod, Homily and their spirited teenage daughter, Arrietty. The Borrowers won the 1952 Carnegie Medal. In 2007, the novel was selected by judges of the CILIP Carnegie Medal for children`s literature as one of the ten most important children`s novels of the past 70 years.