The composition - Antonio Skarmeta

In a village in Chile, Pedro and Daniel are two typical nine-year-old boys.

Up until Daniel's father gets arrested, their biggest worry had been how to improve their soccer skills.

Now, they are thrust into a situation where they must grapple with the incomprehensible: dictatorship and its inherent abuses.

The Composition is a winner of the Americas Award for Children's Literature and the Jane Addams Children's Book Award.

Pedro is a nine-year-old boy whose main interest in life is playing soccer.

The arrest of his friend Daniel's father and a visit to the school of an army captain who wants the children to write a composition entitled What My Family Does at Night suddenly force Pedro to make a difficult choice.

The author's note explains what a dictatorship is and provides a context for this powerful and provocative story.