First, there’s the book and then there’s the movie. Where to encounter the narrative first is always the question! Most of us ‘older’ folk tend to encounter the narrative first in a book, and then later in the movie version. But for today’s children and for me — especially in the case of Japan’s Studio Ghibli movies at any rate — it’s often the movie first. When I first got wind of Studio Ghibli’s movie release, Arietty (it came out in Japan in 2010, DVD release July 2011) I noted quickly that it was based on Mary Norton’s The Borrowers (Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1953). The directors at Studio Ghibli — notably Hayao Miyazaki and son, Goro Miyazaki — have occasionally gone to British children’s books for inspiration for their movies. Their previously released Howl’s Moving Castle was based on Diana Wynne Jones’ book of the same title (published in 1986) and it was through that movie, that I was introduced to Wynne Jones’ writing.
Thanks to Studio Ghibli again, my daughter and I have had a chance to experience The Borrowers by Mary Norton. I picked up a hardback edition of the novel at a used book sale in Nishinomiya where I lived and began reading it at night to my daughter. The Borrowers are little people who live under a house in England, and who ‘borrow’ things from the much larger humans that dwell above them. The family in the first series of the Borrowers books is a small one comprising of the father, Pod, the mother, Homily, and their fourteen year old daughter, Arietty (on whom the movie title is based.) My daughter and I got about halfway through the novel before she got to see the movie (we rented the DVD in Japan just before the day we left) and it was clear from the snippets I saw of it that the Studio Ghibli team was well into animating the tiny world of the Borrowers with its signature, detailed and colorful animation for which it is famous. I hope Arietty makes it into the North American viewing market soon, but barring that, The Borrowers still make a great read for parents and children alike.