The Borrowers
This book is full of fun and adventure, explaining the life of not exactly normal people. Journey alongside the "Borrowers" as they go on a daring adventure, outwitting every problem they face.
Stats for nerds
0recommend
2mentions
2people
2018–2022years
50% neutral50% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Well, no, obviously not. The Ghibli movie is a takeoff on the Borrowers series by Mary Norton; there is no reason to believe tetris11 had the movie in mind rather than the books he referred to by name.
- My daughter, who is 9 now, adores anything by Roald Dahl. I've read most of the famous ones to her. It's super fun when you try to read his nonsense words. Always a laugh. I'm trying to go towards abridged classics. I've read most of Jules Verne to her and some Stevenson (Kidnapped was one of her favourites). She also enjoyed the Milnes original Winne the Pooh (I'll never forgive Disney for destroying it), Gaiman's Coraline and Fortunately the milk. The classics like E.B. Whites Charlottes Web and Stuart Little were fun too. We also went through a childrens adaptation of the Arabian Nights hauntingly illustrated by Victor Ambrus. I heard that the Woz used to read Tom Swift Jr. books to his kids so I read one of those to my daughter. It felt a little cheesy and dated (eg. Asian people were called Orientals) but she enjoyed it. I also read The Water Babies (by Rev. Charles Kingley) to her. It was a weird book but she seemed to enjoy it. The only one she asked me to stop reading to her was "The Borrowers" by Mary Norton. The only thing where she preferred the animation over the book. Right now, we're reading Swallows and Amazons.
She also enjoys reading a lot by herself. Her latest craze was Astrid Lingdren and right now, she's reading Mrs. Frisby and the rats of NIMH.
My son, who's 5 now and can't read fluently yet, enjoys graphic novels. I read at lot of simple "Thomas the Tank engine" stories to him. He also enjoys the "From the black lagoon" series of books as well as stuff from Dr. Seuss and other kids books like the Gruffalo series. One of his favourites are the books by Quentin Blake (Mrs. Armitage, Patrick, Angelo etc.). Interestingly, I read Kidnapped to my daughter while he (unknowingly) listened on and later he was able to recount some of the important scenes in the book quite well. He knew about Alan Breck and how he fought in the ship and what not. That was a bit of a wow moment for me.
I also love reading poetry to them. Even singing it if I can. The Random House book of poetry for children edited by Jack Prelutsky. Both of them love it and enjoy reciting stuff by themselves. They even have a few "favourite poems".
I think one of the responsibilities of a parent, especially in the younger years, is to curate the world that reaches their children. You have to expose them to the best of humanity so that they grow up that way and when they encounter the failings, they'll know how belong human potential it is. The humanities are a wonderful way of doing this and I emphasise them a lot more in my household than the sciences.
