The two books reviewed here, although very different in many ways, do have one thing in common – they have something to do with a secret, which the readers, and the protagonists, all come to know.

Sophie Masson has written a number of books about the Seyrac family, in which she draws on her own French heritage. In this, the fourth, changes come to the family as Maman works to finish her book and Papa is full of plans to open a restaurant with the children’s uncle and aunt who are to emigrate from France. Florence, the eldest of the children, discovers that all is not always as it seems and that people’s appearances can be deceptive. It comes as something of a revelation too, that she might be like Polichinelle and not always as clever as she thinks she is, as she is forced to acknowledge that Andy, the unwanted member of her working group at school, writes better than she does.