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The Kingdom of Childhood

by Rebecca Coleman (Goodreads Author)

3.42 of 5 stars 3.42 · rating details · 1,088 ratings · 294 reviews

The Kingdom of Childhood is the story of a boy and a woman; sixteen-year-old Zach Patterson, uprooted and struggling to reconcile his knowledge of his mother's extramarital affair, and Judy McFarland, a kindergarten teacher watching her family unravel before her eyes. Thrown together to organize a fundraiser for their failing private school and bonded by loneliness, they b...more

Paperback, 338 pages

Published September 27th 2011 by Mira

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The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Women and Mental Illness

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Hot for Teacher

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Oct 03, 2011 April rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: for-review, bea-2011

The Kingdom Of Childhood by Rebecca Coleman is one of those books with a subject that makes your skin crawl, but is a train wrecking told so spellbindingly that it’s impossible to set down.

Read the rest of my review here

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Oct 01, 2011 Sheree rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: arc, own, general-fiction, read-in-2011, reviews

4.5 stars

A thoroughly gripping novel. Rebecca Coleman's writing style is a "no-holds barred" approach; honest, raw, and intense, the content invoked such a whirlpool of emotions, I was unable to put the book down but came away feeling emotionally drained. It's a compelling combination; a bit like watching a car crash ... horrifying and nauseating but you just can't turn away.

It's not like this is unprecedented behaviour, even when I was in high school (many years ago) there was a male teacher/f...more

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Oct 30, 2011 Lydia rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: writers-i-know

Rebecca Coleman is a skilled craftswoman with an awkward challenge: to write a book about an adult woman and an underage boy that is neither a shocking expose or a titillating tale. One potential danger in writing about this topic would be to produce a book that shocks me as a reader, and then guides me to resolution by helping me pass judgment on the characters. A cautionary tale. In reading it, I could clutch my pearls, tut-tut, and then nod firmly as the character gets what's coming to her. O...more Rebecca Coleman is a skilled craftswoman with an awkward challenge: to write a book about an adult woman and an underage boy that is neither a shocking expose or a titillating tale. One potential danger in writing about this topic would be to produce a book that shocks me as a reader, and then guides me to resolution by helping me pass judgment on the characters. A cautionary tale. In reading it, I could clutch my pearls, tut-tut, and then nod firmly as the character gets what's coming to her. On the other side, there's the danger of writing too sexy a book, where the molestation is presented as okay, as justifiable, and the reader is expected to be aroused by it, or in some way complicit with it. This would be, obviously, sort of a rotten thing to write. Porny. Low.

Coleman has delivered a book that successfuly sails between these two perils. The novel presents what happened as what happened, without commentary or adornment. Not "This is good" or "This is bad" but just "This is." The reader, being forced to find her own way through the moral tangle of this book, has the responsibility to sort out blame, innocence, and redemption. There were times when I found myself saying, "Am I supposed to be on board with this?" But the book explodes the concept of "supposed to" and again and again defies the idea that the narrative will provide the reader a safe place to stand and judge. It's just there, and you have to make of it what you will. The author's job is not to judge, it's to narrate -- that's very clear in this book.

What saves Coleman along the way is craft. The extension of the fire motif throughout the book helps us navigate the guilt down through the main character's life story. The explication of the Waldorf philosophy -- this obvious symbol for childlike innocence -- becomes more and more complex as the book goes on. The structure beneath the freedom. The fallen god beneath the god becoming. Until the very character of the narrative itself is challenged, subject as it is to the Waldorfian principle of narration without embellishment. It leads us as readers to ask, what have we been listening to?
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Nov 11, 2011 Mary rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: reviewed

My Opinion:
Amazing! This book is just that. It is truly hard to describe how I feel about this book. The book looks through the eyes of Judy and her past. She is a disturbed woman but we don’t learn that until much later in the book,so at first she reminds you of everyone’s mom. The problem is,she isn’t. This book is bizarre and you at first hate it,until you realize that you are loving how much you hate it. It’s sick and twisted and just plain wrong,yet you can’t stop reading it. You are so dra...more

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May 02, 2012 Ashley rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: general-fiction, library

Not a book for everyone. Major props to the author for weaving a complex, enthralling story around a usually tawdry subject. Extremely well written, it left me guessing to the last page at how it would end. The narrative never feels preachy, instead the reader is left to make one's own opinions on the moral and ethical issues that rise from a student/teacher affair. Enjoyed it more than expected.

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Nov 25, 2012 Jessica Bell rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

GREAT book, a bit disturbing, fabulously-written. But what was even more disturbing was one of the book club questions at the back that totally assumes the main character has a mental illness! I just thought she was human. Everybody makes mistakes. Granted, some are worse than others, but I REALLY didn't think that her mistakes made her mentally ill.

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May 10, 2011 Laurel rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-read-2011

This is a book that begs a discussion. It's challenging, not comfortable (particularly for some since the author tackles the taboo topic of sex between an adult and a child). There are quite a few layers to this story and Coleman's use of Steiner's Waldorf educational method surprisingly holds them all in place quite well. I liked the flashbacks to an earlier time in Germany and the references to the book of moral lessons and Struwwelpeter. They coincided well with the festivals and some of the...more

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Apr 06, 2013 Amanda Hart Miller rated it 5 of 5 stars

The Kingdom of Childhood presents a brave and honest look at the human psyche. The book's power lies foremost in its ability to make us fully believe--even though we may not want to--Zach and Judy's attraction and the subsequent psychological breakdown once the relationship is consummated.

Judy and Zach's attraction to each other is more believable than I had anticipated. Judy is established early on an unhappily married middle-aged woman who has been having erotic dreams about men in her life, d...more The Kingdom of Childhood presents a brave and honest look at the human psyche. The book's power lies foremost in its ability to make us fully believe--even though we may not want to--Zach and Judy's attraction and the subsequent psychological breakdown once the relationship is consummated.

Judy and Zach's attraction to each other is more believable than I had anticipated. Judy is established early on an unhappily married middle-aged woman who has been having erotic dreams about men in her life, dreams that "tended to bring ideas into an area where the circles [of dream and reality] overlapped, making the absurd seem more feasible" (20). It's also established early that Dan, her boss and one of the stars of her dreams, is a man she hates, and that Rudi, a German man with whom she spent time as a child, may have had a more intimate physical relationship with her than she is willing to admit in her own first-person narrative. The suppression of her own victimization shows through in her inability to clearly see herself as the criminal and Zach as the victim. Therefore, Judy is primed for the relationship with Zach: her feelings of lust are complicated and the rules of society that might prevent such a relationship are overridden by the much stronger forces of misguided lust and memory. She is mourning not only a good friend and a loveless marriage but also the youthful part of her she feels she will most likely never recover. She is especially cognizant of her lost youth as she looks ahead to a life with no children in the home.

I had also wondered what kind of 16-year-old would have an affair with a woman in her forties, but Zach's emotions seem to be perfectly realistic as well. He has just experienced his first sexual encounter, during which Fairen, a girl his age became angry at him for getting too rough. He is trying to reconcile the things he wants to do with the things he is allowed to do, and in Judy, he finds he can "swim down into her desire as long as his breath would hold, and never find the bottom. And yet, at the top, the pool shimmered glassy and still. It was sexy as hell" (174-175). Angered by the rules Fairen sets for him, Judy's lack of rules, especially in light of her surface prudishness, invigorate him. Additionally, each remembers that the first physical encounter between them was instigated by the other, a believable notion since it happened in the cramped space of the playhouse Zach built, with Judy shifting toward Zach but remembering this movement as an effort to relieve the pressure from her knees.

The book is paced realistically, in that the unfettered euphoria of the relationship is short-lived and the majority of the book follows the unraveling of the relationship and its participants. I saw the Publishers Weekly review that questions the realism of Judy's descent, but I didn't find her character hard to believe. I don't see a transformation in her as much as a removal of the social mask she has been wearing. We don't see a different, darker Judy as the story progresses; we just see a deeper Judy that has been there all along. Moreover, her dialogue and actions within the relationship will probably strike an uncomfortable chord with many readers, not so much because most readers will have entered into a relationship complicated by an immense age difference, but because I think most readers will have had a relationship that has spiraled into disaster because the feelings were stronger on one side, and as Zach puts it, "nothing derailed a relationship faster than an imbalance of love--or any of its close relatives" (110).

Judy and Zach's relationship is based on each participant's thrill at his or her power to attract the other. Because of this, Judy's frantic attempts to keep Zach's interest are portrayed through realistic dialogue and a frighteningly accurate progression of manipulations involving sex, societal position, and threats that all serve as attempts to regain power, until both Judy and Zach feel they have been raped at one point or another in the relationship. The progression will most likely resonate with many readers, although, of course, in this situation, the issues of Zach's age and Judy's past increase the tension even more.

The writing is beautiful, filled with vivid settings, sex scenes that are highly erotic yet still cloaked in literary decency, multiple points of view that feel realistic, and truthful tidbits of insight. "The Kingdom of Childhood" is a must-read. It presents a complicated attraction and subsequent psychological breakdown in an entirely convincing way. I read it in one day, unable to break away from the story enough to put it down. (less)

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Mar 03, 2013 Chana rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: adultery, american, maryland, literature-fiction, fiction-family-drama, not-for-kids

Normally this kind of book would not appeal to me but this one had a few things that made it more meaningful and not just a morass of people's inability to control themselves.
It is a cautionary story of adultery written against the background of President Bill Clinton's well publicized adultery. Judy is a kindergarten teacher at the Waldorf school and Zach is a 16 year old student at the school. Judy caught her father in the bedroom with their young housekeeper when she was 10 years old. At this...more Normally this kind of book would not appeal to me but this one had a few things that made it more meaningful and not just a morass of people's inability to control themselves.
It is a cautionary story of adultery written against the background of President Bill Clinton's well publicized adultery. Judy is a kindergarten teacher at the Waldorf school and Zach is a 16 year old student at the school. Judy caught her father in the bedroom with their young housekeeper when she was 10 years old. At this time her mother was in a mental institution and Judy was in love with the housekeeper's teenage brother. The brother was a nice guy and although probably aware of Judy's feelings did not take advantage of her. Nevertheless, Judy was quite a cracked person, you won't know how cracked until near the end. Zach was a kind of this ideal teenage boy; smart, kind, hard-working, in good with his family, and in great physical condition. He had been raised in a yoga/Waldorf environment and lived it quite well and willingly. But he also very strongly suspects that his mother had an affair with one of her yoga students. Backgrounds, hormones and proximity ignite; soon Judy and Zach are involved in an intense sexual relationship. People start suspecting, Zack starts to resent Judy and mostly wants out of the relationship, Judy just gets more cracked. Zack's mother is pregnant and her midwife, in an attempt to promote safe sex, has supplied Zack with condoms. She is quite angry when she finds out who Zack is using the condoms with.
As I said, I found this to be a better than average book about this subject because it acknowledges that adultery can inflict damage on the children whose parents are involved in it, and as a novel it is creepy, has a ton of great atmosphere. It also brings to one's thoughts the prosecuted cases of rape against female teachers and teenage male students. And the current practice of giving condoms to teenagers and trying to teach them safe sex vs the vows of chastity that some religions promote. This is not a preachy book, it just brings all these ideas to the table and lets the reader think about them.(less)

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Nov 02, 2012 Christa Sgobba rated it 2 of 5 stars

I wasn't a big fan of this book. The positives: it was an easy, engaging read--a page-turner that held my interest.

The negatives: I flat-out hated the main character, Judy. We know from the synopsis it's about a teacher beginning an affair with her son's 16-year-old friend, but the actual progression of the "relationship" goes from unsettling to downright disturbing. And it wasn't just her interactions with that boy that were off. She dealt with her two children very impersonally, like they were...more

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Oct 15, 2012 Shannon rated it 2 of 5 stars

I read The Kingdom of Childhood for a book club. Months ago, I voted for this book because it sounded like an interesting book with a topic that would prompt good discussion. (Over time, I've found the best book club books aren't those you necessarily love, but the ones that will give you fodder for conversation.) But when I got the book from the library and saw that it was published by a division of Harlequin, I was concerned. I read it anyway and found my concern was realized in some ways, unf...more I read The Kingdom of Childhood for a book club. Months ago, I voted for this book because it sounded like an interesting book with a topic that would prompt good discussion. (Over time, I've found the best book club books aren't those you necessarily love, but the ones that will give you fodder for conversation.) But when I got the book from the library and saw that it was published by a division of Harlequin, I was concerned. I read it anyway and found my concern was realized in some ways, unfounded in others.

I had feared Harlequin meant predictable, romance-oriented and poorly written. The Kingdom of Childhood didn't rate high on my predictability scale and it was reasonably well written (although not so fabulously written that you should run out and get it immediately and take notes on her turns of phrase), so those fears were unfounded. The romance part? Um, yes. That's just about all the book was about. The disturbing part? It was romance between a middle aged female teacher and a sixteen year old boy.

I guess all those months ago when I voted for the book, I knew this. But given my refusal to read even the back of the book before I begin reading, it took me by surprise when the book got going. The descriptions weren't lurid or overly detailed. What was disturbing was the inequality in the power of their relationship - like the teacher always driving and always looking for ways to get the boy alone.

The setting of the book (a Waldorf school) was also intriguing and interesting. My husband I visited a Waldorf before our daughter started Kindergarten and we opted for Montessori instead, so I enjoyed getting a behind the scenes (albeit fictional) look at this type of learning. While there's much I don't necessarily agree with, there are some tenets of this style of education that appeal to me.

Our book club met last night and this book did rouse some good conversation about how to talk these issues through with our own children, whether the genders of the characters in the book changed our perceptions and how realistic this portrayal of an affair was. If you're looking for a book that's fairly easy to read and will get your group talking, The Kingdom of Childhood fits the bill. If you're looking for a book that will leave you feeling warm and fuzzy, look elsewhere.(less)

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Jul 20, 2012 Judith Yeabsley rated it 3 of 5 stars

I could not put this book down but for all the wrong reasons. A woman with a traumatic past grows into a suburban mother and wife, teaching at the local Steiner school. She has a terrible relationship with her college age daughter and 18 y.o. son (also at the school) and her husband. She begins an affair with a 16 1/2 y.o.boy at the school who has just moved into the area as his family is in upheaval.
I was shocked at how disturbing I found it all and also how much it began to affect the boy on...more

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May 29, 2012 Jacquelynn Fritz rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is a great book for book club discussion, but it is a hard book to read at times. The story is about Zach and Judy. Judy is a 40ish married woman, mother of two, in a bad marriage. Zach is a sixteen year-old boy, who is in Madrigals with Judy's son Scott. Judy is a kindergarten teacher at the school that Zach and Scott attend. Russ, Judy's husband is working on his PhD and is ignoring almost everything else in his life.
The book is told from both Judy's and Zach's point of view. They have...more

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Apr 10, 2012 Kimberly Shursen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Written by: Rebecca Coleman

Paper Back: 338 Pages

Publisher: Mira Books

Genre: Fiction

SUMMARY: The story begins in Sylvania, Maryland where Judy McFarland, wife and mother of two teenage children, teaches kindergarten. Unlike Ms. Coleman’s characters, the private Waldorf Schools where Judy is employed is not fictitious. Founded in l819 each child enrolled in a Waldorf school has their own unique lesson book created to inspire the individual gifts and talents of each student. One of the tenets of...more

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Apr 09, 2012 Star (The Bibliophilic Book Blog) rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: reviewed

Judy McFarland had a not quite ordinary upbringing being a military brat living in Germany. She had moved back to the United States, married, had two kids, and is a kindergarten teacher at a Steiner-Waldorf school in Maryland. Her daughter is off at college, her son is in his last year of high school, and her husband is busy with his doctoral dissertation. She's left afloat alone in a failing marriage, a stressful work environment, coping with the loss of her best friend, and then Zach comes alo...more

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Feb 12, 2012 Alisha rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: drama, contemporary-fiction

So, usually I love any book that is psychologically thrilling and I never shy away from reading about a disturbing subject. However, for some strange reason, I was a bit put off while reading The Kingdom of Childhood. Yes, while reading the synopsis of the book, I did realize that the subject matter would include a woman who was having an affair with a teenager. I just didn't realize it would affect me the way it did. I was thoroughly squicked out. Seriously, this book was icky and I sometimes d...more So, usually I love any book that is psychologically thrilling and I never shy away from reading about a disturbing subject. However, for some strange reason, I was a bit put off while reading The Kingdom of Childhood. Yes, while reading the synopsis of the book, I did realize that the subject matter would include a woman who was having an affair with a teenager. I just didn't realize it would affect me the way it did. I was thoroughly squicked out. Seriously, this book was icky and I sometimes dreaded picking the book up. The only time I dread picking up a book is when the book is boring. But The Kingdom of Childhood, while disturbing, is both wonderfully written and one hell of a page-turner. So nowhere near boring. But still, when I would pick the book back up, my thought would be "Do you REALLY want to put yourself through this?" Clearly, I did since I finished the book.

Anyway, the most interesting aspect of The Kingdom of Childhood for me was the character of Judy McFarland. At first, she starts out as a somewhat sympathetic character. I desperately felt sorry for her at the beginning, what with her jerk of a husband and the death of her best friend. But slowly, you start thinking "Wow, she's a little...off." Then you start thinking, "Okay, she's getting a tad bit creepy now", until finally you realize "This chick is off-the-charts CRAZY!" And you see how she starts off as someone who is somewhat flirting with a teenager and morphs into a sexual predator. I also liked that you sort of get why she morphed the way she did (I am by no means excusing her behavior as I find it deplorable) considering the circumstances of her childhood. This wasn't something that showed up out of the blue and was completely out of character, but rather something where you start to think that it has always been a definite possibility for her (again I don't excuse her behavior at all. Just felt that needed to be repeated).

So, I liked The Kingdom of Childhood. Yes, it was creepy, disturbing, and all sorts of ick, but reading about Judy MacFarland's descent into madness is utterly engaging (and again, utterly creepy). So, if you're a fan of psychological thrillers (and not in the detective kind of way, but the more disturbing way), definitely check out The Kingdom of Childhood. And, again, this is not for the easily icked.(less)

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Nov 05, 2011 Lisa rated it 3 of 5 stars

Judy McFarland’s life is a mess. Her marriage is crumbling, her school is going bankrupt, her best friend just died. She’s started to think about escape — her youngest son will be graduating soon and then she could leave, get a divorce, do whatever she wanted. Unfortunately, she doesn’t wait until after graduation. In Rebecca Coleman’s The Kingdom of Childhood, she makes some terrible choices that devastate the people around her.

You really want to feel sorry for Judy. The school she has loved an...more Judy McFarland’s life is a mess. Her marriage is crumbling, her school is going bankrupt, her best friend just died. She’s started to think about escape — her youngest son will be graduating soon and then she could leave, get a divorce, do whatever she wanted. Unfortunately, she doesn’t wait until after graduation. In Rebecca Coleman’s The Kingdom of Childhood, she makes some terrible choices that devastate the people around her.

You really want to feel sorry for Judy. The school she has loved and supported for more than 20 years is financially unstable. Her husband, Russ, is withdrawn, caught up in his own career struggles and out of touch with the family. Her daughter, Maggie, away at college, is rebelling against the very principles her parents found so important. Her son, Scott, is silent and sullen (a typical teenager). Her best friend, Bobbie, died of cancer and every day, Judy has to walk by the classroom where she used to teach. It’s a miserable situation for anyone.

The problem is, Judy makes one horrible decision after another. She is drawn to a friend of her son’s , Zach, a good kid with a dirty mind and a quick wit. She’s assigned to work with him on a school bazaar and one day, he kisses her.

If she had any sense she would have walked away right then. She would have made sure she didn’t spend time alone with him, she would have gotten some counseling, anything. Instead, she decides she can handle it. She can work with him. But she can’t. And the inevitable happens.

We don’t always think of teenage boys as being the “victim” when they are having an affair with a teacher. Sure, we know — technically — that it’s rape, that it’s a crime, but there’s still a little part of the brain that thinks the kid really got lucky. Coleman does a very good job of showing Zach’s differing reactions. Part of his mind thinks he’s gotten lucky – very lucky indeed. But he also feels pressured — Judy can be downright demanding — and although he’s pretty sure she’s joking when she says “Better watch out. You’re going to need a college recommendation one of these days,” he really can’t be sure. He’s under tremendous pressure — what if someone finds out? What will his friends say — he’s sleeping with his best friend’s mother! Will he get expelled? Will Judy get fired? It’s more than a teenager should have to deal with.

The story also wraps us up in Judy’s childhood, a strange series of flashbacks to the time her family spent in Germany. Her father worked at a military base while her mother went slowly insane. In some ways, her childhood mirrors Zach’s, in that they both learned things about their parents that they were far too young to deal with.

The book is set in a Waldorf School. This was a new concept for me and I could see why people would be drawn to it, especially for young children. Certainly an affair like Zach and Judy’s could have taken place in any suburban high school, but there is something about the freedom and wholesomeness of the Waldorf environment that makes it seem by turns more inevitable and more perverse.

This isn’t a book with a lot of plot twists — you know what’s coming. You can feel the rumble, see the headlights of the oncoming truck, but you can’t get out of the way. Still, the book kept me intrigued through the ending, which was what I expected, even as I hoped they would be able to change it.(less)

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Nov 02, 2011 Pamela Todd rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: ebook, read-in-2011

Judy is a kindergarten teacher in her forties, watching her family unravel and feeling powerless to stop it. Zach is sixteen and struggling to come to terms with his mother’s affair. The miss-matched pair are thrown together whilst organising a fundraising for their failing private school. At first it is dangerous and intoxicating…Judy feeling alive once again, Zach getting his first tastes of pleasure. But their romance quickly takes a dark edge, an emotionally damaging and life-altering relati...more

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Oct 18, 2011 Ciara rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-in-2011

this book...i don't even know where to begin. i guess with the plot: judy is a 40-something kindergarten teacher in a waldorf school in maryland. she has two older children. her daughter is away at college & busy rejecting the waldorf values she'd had been instilled with as a child by becoming a crazy right-wing baptist. her son is finishing up his senior year at the waldorf school & rebels by being a bit of a bro-dude & spending all his time with his girlfriend. judy's husband, russ...more this book...i don't even know where to begin. i guess with the plot: judy is a 40-something kindergarten teacher in a waldorf school in maryland. she has two older children. her daughter is away at college & busy rejecting the waldorf values she'd had been instilled with as a child by becoming a crazy right-wing baptist. her son is finishing up his senior year at the waldorf school & rebels by being a bit of a bro-dude & spending all his time with his girlfriend. judy's husband, russ, is in this third year of working on his doctoral dissertation--something about fish--& judy feels lonely & abandoned as a result. i'm a grad school widow myself, so at first, i was like, "i relate," but russ's obsession with the privacy of his office, canceling pre-planned anniversary vacations, etc, made it obvious something else was going on. sure enough, judy discovers that russ is addicted to prescription painkillers. which is certainly a common problem in the united states these days, but...

see, that's part of the problem with this book. it's as if coleman just kind of threw everything at the wall to see what sticks. we have rebelling waldorf children, prescription pill addiction, hippie crunchy home birth moms, a 40-year-old kindergarten teacher seducing the 16-year-old buddy of her son (yeah, that's the main plot), all set against the back drop of the clinton-lewinsky affair. when done well, this whole "slice of life/moment in contemporary history" thing can be pretty cool. when not done well, it all seems rather clunky & amateur-ish. perhaps because coleman is merely a passable writer with no significant gift for turning a phrase or knitting together disparate plotlines, this felt clunky & amateur-ish.

don't get me wrong, i didn't hate it. for once, i really mean my two-star rating. this book was okay. it was very readable (i finished it in about four hours), it held my attention, but there was nothing about it that bowled me over...in a good way.

what bowled me over in a bad way was the enormously mishandled childhood backstory that was perhaps designed to shed some light on why judy felt compelled to seduce a 16-year-old boy into an obsessive sexual relationship. it's unclear to me if the flashbacks to judy's brief spell living in germany as a ten-year-old were supposed to generate sympathy or shock or what, but i would have a difficult time imagining a plotline more gimmicky & silly. i won't spoil anything, but suffice to say that once judy's experiences as a ten-year-old become clear, the preposterously anti-climactic ending (chock-full of what i'm sure were supposed to be shocking moments that couldn't have fallen more flat) can drive a reader to only one conclusion: "oh. rebecca coleman just isn't really a great writer." she had some kernels of a really great book here. i just wish the manuscript had gone through a few more revisions.(less)

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Lydia I disagree. I feel it's Coleman's skill as a writer that takes such a revolting topic and makes it palatable. She delivered some masterful touches, li...more
Oct 30, 2011 05:24am

Ciara it is unclear to me how anything in your comment relates to anything i wrote in my review. i didn't mention the way coleman "wove" the concept of fire...more
Oct 30, 2011 06:03am

Lydia I just read it differently. That's all. Just glanced at your page -- on an unrelated note, I also lived in northwest Ohio for a while. Wish there had...more
Oct 30, 2011 09:43am

Oct 17, 2011 Sue rated it 4 of 5 stars

Sexual obsession and its destructive power drive Coleman’s gripping debut novel.

Judy MacFarland is a kindergarten teacher at the failing Sylvania Waldorf School, a private K-12 school in Maryland. Her husband, Russ, seems to have forgotten that he has a family since he began his doctoral dissertation. Her son, Scott, is a popular senior at the Waldorf School who spends most of his time with his friends, and her daughter Maggie is away at college. Judy is a very lonely woman. Throw in the recent...more

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Oct 13, 2011 Erica rated it 5 of 5 stars

I received an ARC of this book and I cannot recommend it highly enough. It tells the story of Judy McFarland, a middle-aged Waldorf school teacher, and the affair she enters into with sixteen-year old Zach Patterson. The narrative shifts back and forth between Judy and Zach, and also from past to present, slowly revealing the damaging events that occurred in Judy's past that have led her to where she is now.

The writing is superb on every level. It is quite clearly the work of someone who has st...more

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Oct 10, 2011 Bookworm rated it 4 of 5 stars

The Kingdom of Childhood is a beautifully written novel that had me drawn in from the start. This novel swept me in, yet made me uncomfortable with its subject matter. It was kind of like witnessing a car wreck, you don't want to look, but you can't help but stare in shock.

Judy McFarland is a middle aged wife and mother. Judy's husband Russ has changed since they were first married. He is a professor obsessed with his work, Judy is a kindergarten teacher at a private school. Their children are...more The Kingdom of Childhood is a beautifully written novel that had me drawn in from the start. This novel swept me in, yet made me uncomfortable with its subject matter. It was kind of like witnessing a car wreck, you don't want to look, but you can't help but stare in shock.

Judy McFarland is a middle aged wife and mother. Judy's husband Russ has changed since they were first married. He is a professor obsessed with his work, Judy is a kindergarten teacher at a private school. Their children are older now, the daughter away at college and the son a senior in the school Judy teaches. Judy longs for the day her son graduates high school and goes off to college, so she can be free.
The story jumps back to 1960's Bavaria when Judy was a child to present day.

Judy is unhappy in her marriage and throughout the story you see bits and pieces of her past. She was traumatized as a child and has blocked most of the memories out. She now finds herself attracted to a sixteen year old boy named Zach Patterson, one of her son's friends and schoolmates. She begins to have an inappropriate relationship with the student.

Judy shows no real remorse for her actions throughout the book, and no morals whatsoever. I immediately thought of her as a pedophile. She would also have casual sex and sex dreams about coworkers, all without a second thought. Although I didn't care for the central character in this book, I found the story powerful and disturbing all at once.
Judy was relieved when Zach didn't report her. Zach himself is an interesting character, he seemed very bright and mature for his age.
This book is great for a group read, it begs to be discussed. There are plenty of underlying issues within this story; abuse of authority, the issue of morality and ethics, infidelity and mental health all play a part here.

Author Rebecca Coleman's writing reminds me of Alice Sebold's The Almost Moon . Sebold also creates this unlikeable and flawed central character in a beautifully written story, and makes her book hard to put down.

With beautiful prose, it's disturbing plot, and complex characters, I found The Kingdom of Childhood to be an interesting read.

read my full review here
http://thebookworm07.blogspot.com/201...(less)

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Sep 27, 2011 Deborah Sloan rated it 4 of 5 stars

At the local Waldorf School Kindergarten teacher Judy McFarland feels her life slipping away as her husband Russ works continuously on his dissertation and their son Scott becomes more involved with his friends in his teen years. Judy finds the only spark of interest in her life now is in the newest student of the Waldorf School a classmate of her son,the transplanted 16 year old Zach Patterson who reminds her of a childhood friend she was much comforted by. But perhaps Judy’s recent loss of her...more

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Sep 23, 2011 Laura Carns rated it 5 of 5 stars

I received an advance copy of this book, and when I first learned what it was about, I was a bit leery. Such potentially explosive and controversial subject matter would have to be handled with great care and skill to avoid being simply tawdry and uncomfortable.

Not only was I pleasantly surprised, but I was hooked. Once I got about 30 pages in, I found myself so drawn in by the characters that I simply could not put the book down. The plot moves along so well -- it's a strange combination of the...more

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Mar 17, 2012 Kandes rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: adult-reads, dafuq

Wow, I have nooo idea how I feel about this book... Well, for starters, the reason I didn't give it 5 stars, because I usually reserve that many stars for books I would definetly reread over and over and over, this one wasn't like that. But did I enjoy it? Heck Yeah! Did I read it in about a day? Yesss! Would I recommend it to anybody? Yes, within reason.. I mean it was an adult book, not YA, so I'd say anyone over the age of 16 or 17. The only thing I was disappointed in was that everyone kept...more

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Feb 22, 2013 Sheri rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: male-female-power-sex-attractivenes

If this book did not have an interesting topic (adult woman seducing a teenage boy) it would have gotten only 1 star. I think Coleman's writing was trite, her foreshadowing clunky and obvious, and her lack of consistency in characters downright annoying.

Most of my notes from the first third of this book have to do with frustration that Coleman doesn't appear to understand how much the typical 16-18 year old knows about sex and the world at large. When Judy first meets Zach (as one of her son's f...more If this book did not have an interesting topic (adult woman seducing a teenage boy) it would have gotten only 1 star. I think Coleman's writing was trite, her foreshadowing clunky and obvious, and her lack of consistency in characters downright annoying.

Most of my notes from the first third of this book have to do with frustration that Coleman doesn't appear to understand how much the typical 16-18 year old knows about sex and the world at large. When Judy first meets Zach (as one of her son's friends) she is shocked at his use of inappropriate language (come being offensive for her) and feels that she cannot or should not discuss the Lewinski-Clinton drama with these "kids".

I thought the Mrs. Robinson discussion on their way home from the OH trip to be so ridiculously overt as to almost warrant a cessation in my reading.

I thought Russ's drug use (and overdose) was just added drama. I think a book like this (done well) could be an interesting character piece on its own with just a hint of the neglectful (because he is too busy with work) husband, rather than the drug abuse and overdose having been thrown into the mix. Along the same lines, I thought the fact that the school was going broke (and even closes and her last paycheck bounces!) was unnecessary plot/drama.

I also found Zach to be unbelievably inconsistent. First, he is the obnoxious kid who is telling jokes and doesn't ever work up to his potential. Then, he is the super mature and responsive son who takes extra care of his pregnant mother (bringing her lunch in bed) and loves his soon-to-be-born baby sister despite her potential problematic parentage. He is also the kid who never lies and worries about the morality of the affair. Blech...too much wavering here; he needs to be either aloof and teenager-ish or moody and removed, but not alternating super-engaged and checked out.

I found the whole culmination at the Winter concert to be too rushed and silly (would the mid-wife really seek Zach out to warn him?) and the fact that Judy returns to find Russ dead (but amazingly not from an overdose that she caused) to just be too sudden. I get that she is mentally ill and has become obsessed with Zach, but I was surprised that she had not even really remembered that Scott exists and that after his DAD DIES she simply ignores them and allows him to leave the state (isn't there a funeral? aren't there other family members who come to take care of things even if Judy has lost it?). I also found it astonishing that their daughter doesn't come home. I know she has turned weirdly religious, but wouldn't she still come home because her DAD IS DEAD????

Overall so much of it was just not plausible. Coleman was trying to address an interesting topic, but she made it so ridiculous that the book was not worth the time or energy to read.(less)

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Nov 20, 2012 Tricia rated it 4 of 5 stars

The Kingdom of Childhood
Rebecca Coleman

I could not stop reading this book. I just had to see how this was going to end and I have to say the end held quite the surprise for me.
Judy McFarland, a kindergarten teacher, has an affair with a sixteen-year-old, Zach Patterson. Not only is he a student of her school, he is a friend of her son.
We have heard about this type of relationship in the news and I always wonder what would possess an adult woman to start up an inappropriate relationship with a ch...more

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Oct 24, 2011 Carly Thompson rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011, contemporary-fiction

A compulsively readable novel about a deeply disturbed woman. Set in 1998, during the Clinton impeachment scandal, Judy McFarland is a middle-aged kindergarten teacher at a Waldorf school in Maryland. Judy is unhappy in her marriage (she is planning on leaving her husband when her son leaves for college in a year) and suppressing her emotions about the death of her best friend and fellow teacher. She meets Zach Patterson, a 16 year old friend of her son, who has recently enrolled at the Waldorf...more

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Sep 13, 2011 Chelsea rated it 5 of 5 stars

Judy McFarland is a long-time teacher at the Waldorf school in Sylvania, Maryland, but lately her life has been pretty unhappy. Her husband doesn't have time for her, her children are distant and detached, and her closest friend and confidante recently passed away. So despite knowing that its wrong, when the opportunity to hook up with one of the older students at the school arises, she takes it. Zach is sixteen, with one foot firmly in adulthood and the other clinging to his youth. Being with J...more

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Jul 19, 2012 Sarah Jamison rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is the first book I've finished in a long time that I've really wanted to talk about. Excellent book club choice in that way. And I feel a little bad about it, but my enjoyment of the story is entirely schadenfreude-based. I found the central character abhorrent and really took genuine pleasure in how awful she was. It didn't end quite like I thought it would end, but the ending was as realistic as the rest of the book, which speaks to the authors consistency. I thought the changes in point...more

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About Rebecca Coleman

received her B.A. in English literature from the University of Maryland at College Park and speaks to writers' groups on the subjects of creative writing and publishing. A native New Yorker, she now lives and works near Washington, D.C.

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Quotes from The Kingdom of Childhood

“She looked into Kirsten's eyes and wondered how it is that a soldier fights and a savior suffers, but a woman, in lying down, rules everything.” — 4 people liked it

“What is it about her? he wondered hopelessly. What did she offer him that he couldn't find elsewhere? Why did he persist in seeking her out, thinking about her, wanting her, when she was exactly wrong for him in nearly every way?” — 3 people liked it

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