The Meeuwissen family, in Peter Rushforth's small, thoughtful first novel [Kindergarten], seems overdone, and is one reason why one withholds full assent to an otherwise successful work of fiction….

Kindergarten, though richly woven and affecting, ultimately puzzles. On one hand, Rushforth is simplistically sentimental about the innocence of childhood and family life; on the other, he is angry and self-righteous about the perceived evil of a world that thrives by eating children. The paradox has always been, of course, that the death of children is unacceptable but inescapable. Rushforth seems to assert quietly, as in a meeting house, that despite the mechanistic infanticidists in the 20th century, there can still be happy endings. Accordingly, he closes his book with the orthodox telling of "Hansel and Gretel."… Though one confesses reservations about the rigor and efficacy of fairy tales in 1980, it is impossible not to smile.

John Calvin Batchelor...