Sensitive, adventurous Arietty Clock longs to see the world beyond the confines of her parents' cramped home in "The Borrowers," the latest enchanting offering from Children's Theatre of Charlotte. It's a story that will resonate with kids of all ages: Arietty loves her parents fiercely and needs their support, but wants a different way of life and is beginning to understand what that might mean.

The production, skillfully directed by Mark Sutton, achieves the neat trick of constructing a world that is at once magical and mundane. The Clocks are Borrowers, tiny people who live under the floorboards of a human house and live by "borrowing" (not stealing!) human possessions.

Arietty (Casi Harris) desperately wants to see blue sky and green grass; mother Homily (Nicia Carla) would like a matching tea set, among other fancy things; and father Pod (Chaz Pofahl) is troubled because he's been seen by a "human bean" on his last trip up to the surface. If they're discovered, the Clocks will be forced to "emigrate" into the surrounding fields.

Despite his worries, Pod agrees to take Arietty on his next "borrowing" trip - and there she meets and befriends a Boy (Daniel O'Sullivan) who is just as fascinated with her as she is with him. After she leaves, the Boy goes looking for her, setting off a chain of events that forces the Clocks out into the fields, searching for lost family members who emigrated years before.

Kerry Chipman's sets are gorgeous. Be sure to take a close look at the intricately imagined Clock apartment where a Murphy bed is fashioned out of a cigar box top, a sardine can and alphabet blocks.

The special effects are amazing: On an elevated stage, the Boy pries up the floorboard roof to the Clock's home. The frightened family (and the audience) see his hugely magnified face above them, displayed on a movie screen. The show makes extensive and creative use of puppets (by Cheralyn Lambeth), as interactions between the Clocks, the Boy and other human beans are shown actual size.

As always in CTC shows, there are more than a few moments of transporting wonder. Arietty's quiet conversation with a moth is one, and a duel between Spiller, a Borrower boy, and a wasp is another.

Harris, as Arietty, carries the production with a mix of childlike amazement and adult self-awareness. Carla and Pofahl, as Mr. and Mrs. Clock, create convincing characters that grow in strength and resilience as the play progresses. Gerard Hazelton is affecting as Dreadful Spiller (one of his four roles), a feral Borrower boy with great survival skills and few words whom the Clocks meet in the outside world. Debra Mein, as the narrow-minded housekeeper and cook Mrs. Driver, gets to deliver some of the play's funniest lines.

The script (adapted by Charles Way from the children's books by Mary Norton) relies on gentle humor and Arietty's poetic narrated diary entries. Both boys and girls will love the show's deft mix of action (fight scenes! menacing animals!) and cozy domestic scenes, tied together by a strong girl protagonist. Borrow a kid - if you need to - and go see it.