Mary Norton

When the witch next door falls off her broomstick, it's the start of an amazing adventure for Carey, Charles and Paul. Her spell turns out better than she'd hoped, and gives the children an enchanted bedknob which whisks them off anywhere they want, even back in time.

The Pod family escape to the fields where their cousins live, but it's a long and dangerous journey. At last they find a new home and adapt to country life.

When their brief refuge in a gamekeeper's cottage is interrupted, the Borrowers are forced to take flight. But Arrietty is looking forward to the future whatever the danger.

Pod, Homily, and Arrietty Clock - the family of tiny borrowers - think they have at last found an ideal home. They've moved into a house in a miniature village built as a hobby by a retired railroad man. The village is the perfect size for Borrowers, and after the hardships they've faced, the Clocks gratefully settle into the luxury of having a 'proper' house. The easy life makes them careless.

Or, rather, it makes Arrietty careless. She befriends a 'human bean', and the next thing Arrietty knows, she and her family have been kidnapped. Their captors are a greedy married couple called the Platters, who have big plans for the little people. They have created their own miniature village in a glass case and plan to imprison the Borrowers within - like animals in a zoo - for the rest of their lives...

Book 4 in the Borrowers series.

These delightful short stories were written in the 1940's and 50's to keep the family solvent, hence the title of the collection!