The Nomes go through various adventures – in Truckers, the two groups meet, they have to flee the soon-to-be-demolished department store, they have to band together to drive an enormous truck to a new home. That latter group had not been outside for generations, believed the sky to be a myth, and worshipped a god called Arnold Bros (est. Another group, a few hundred yards away, lived a life of comical luxury in the wall cavities of a department store, eating taramasalata from the deli and wearing satin from the haberdashery section. One group lived in a muddy ditch beside a motorway and spent their lives hunting mice and avoiding being eaten by foxes.

In order, their titles were Truckers, Diggers, and Wings, and they dealt with the travails of a species of four-inch-tall humanoid creatures, the Nomes, living unseen lives around a generic Home Counties town called Blackbury.

We’d call them “young adult” fiction today. Some time around 1991, when I was 10 or so years old, someone – probably my father – handed me a trio of slim books.

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