This picture book for older readers tells how two 9 year old boys living in a village in Chile - who are normally preoccupied with improving their football skills - find themselves caught up in the politics of the adult world and the nature of the military dictatorship which governs their country. When Daniel's father is arrested and dragged down the street by soldiers, Pedro starts worrying about the safety of his own parents, whether they too are opponents of the regime and whether this is connected to their evening routine of listening carefully to the radio. When an army officer visits their school and orders all pupils to enter a competition by writing an essay entitled 'What My Family Does at Night', Pedro must think quickly and writes an entirely fictitious portrait of how his family spends their evenings, thereby protecting his parents and marking his own awakening opposition to the regime. The illustrations suggest the atmosphere of menace that invades daily life under a dictatorship, underlining the bravery of any stand against it.