Written throught the eyes of a child Esther Freud takes us on Tess' desperate attempts to get William to like her. She knits him 'lumpy socks', looks after his chickens with a passion reserved for non and will do anything to be chosen to help him cook. Her brother Jake is a different character altogether and holds resentment and harbours his feelings until quite an explosive end. The book shows the mistakes of adults though life and how the effects of their vocabulary and actions can affect a child. Well written but I found this book a little dull and needing more of a storyline to keep me gripped. It took until the final quarter of the book for me to feel any kind of connection with the book and it's characters.