Books come and go. Most often they come and go very quickly, before the library charge kicks in, and that's why my rave today is about The Borrowers Avenged, which I own, and not about one of the other Borrowers books.
It took me a while to get to like The Borrowers. I think it's because there's a melancholy about the books which wasn't what I wanted when I was young.
Once I had read the books two or three times, though, and no longer had to worry quite so much about what might be going to happen, I loved them very much.
The Borrowers aren't people, though they contrive to be quite startlingly human. But then the writing about all the characters is exquisite.
He put the wire-cutter and the chisel into the cat-basket. Mrs Platter added the sandwiches and a bottle of cold tea. 'Would you like a piece of cake?' she asked him. But he did not seem to hear her, so, picking up her coat, she followed him quietly out through the front door.
Was ever a pair of grown ups so utterly real?
Word To Use Today: chisel. This lovely word is from the Old French cisel, and before that from the Latin caesellum, from caedare, to cut.
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