Books To Love: The Borrowers

The Peanut and I choose a different book every summer as "our book," and we read a chapter or so in the heat of the afternoon in the master bedroom, snuggled comfortably in the air conditioning on the big, king-sized bed, reveling in the glorious lazy goodness of summer and excellent storytelling.

We have done this each summer since she was small.  And it is something we look forward to now each year when school is out.  We haven't yet selected this year's story, although I am thinking The Secret Garden may be a good pick, or perhaps Treasure Island.  But it could also be one of the Harry Potter books that she hasn't yet read (she's somewhere in the middle of the series, along with reading a bunch of other books at the same time).

The key is to pick a book that has a really good story that will pull her along day in and day out and make her drag me to read aloud again.  I know that I've hooked her when she is begging for more story the moment she wakes up.

Two summers ago, our read together book was The Borrowers by Mary Norton.  And it was just such a book.

Even now, two years later, she still talks about scenes from The Borrowers. And wants to make presents for The Borrowers in our own house that she is convinced we must have.  Her reasoning?  "Our house is 109 years old, how could we not?"  You can't really argue with that.

Last summer, Studio Ghibli released The Secret World of Arrietty. At our house, it was a much anticipated film, because The Borrowers is all about Arrietty, her family and her world, and the adventures she has trying to stay out of sight from humans while still being close enough to them to borrow what her family needs.

While the movie is enchanting, as pretty much all Ghibli offerings are given Miyazake's amazing gift of storytelling and visual art, it just isn't as good as the original book from whence it came.  If you haven't yet read The Borrowers, you really should -- it is fabulous.

There are several books in the Borrowers series, and we haven't yet read them all, so perhaps this summer will be more of a series read.

What's your read aloud for your kids lately?  We're always looking for our next good read...