What might have been a clichéd story of a frustrated middle aged mother and a teenage schoolboy is cleverly sidestepped in this excellent debut. Instead we have dark disturbing story, driven by illicit passion and a past secret that quickly infects and corrupts. We loved it and think you won’t be able to stop talking about this controversial, unsettling and fascinating story.
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 organise a fundraiser for their failing private school and bonded by loneliness, they begin an affair that at first thrills, then corrupts each of them.
Judy sees in Zach the elements of a young man she loved as a child, but what Zach does not realise is that their relationship is—for Judy—only the latest in a lifetime of disturbing secrets. ‘The danger loomed much larger than I had feared. Not because he might report me. But because he would not.’
Controversial, unsettling and fascinating – you won’t be able to stop talking about The Kingdom Of Childhood.
“Dark and fast-moving...a stark psychological drama.” — Publishers Weekly
“Wow, what a book!” — Carol Fitzgerald, Book Reporter
“An enthralling read... recommended for fans of Jodi Picoult’s realistic, ethics-driven novels.” — Library Journal
Author
About Rebecca Coleman
A New Yorker by birth, Rebecca Coleman grew up in the close suburbs of Washington, D.C., in an academic family. A year spent in Germany, at the age of eight, would later provide the basis for the protagonist’s background in The Kingdom of Childhood. She first learned about the Waldorf School movement at age 14 and quickly developed a fascination with its culture and philosophies.
