First-novelist Rushforth has a beautiful, if unformed, sliver of a story [in Kindergarten]; unfortunately, he has bulked it out to short-novel length by lumbering it with a contrived, over-explicit, sentimental network of thematic parallels and literary allusions…. Rushforth renders this odd little "German Christmas" household splendidly: the precocious but loving repartee between the two older brothers is perfectly captured …, and grandmother Lilli's long-postponed return to painting is genuinely touching. Sadly, however, these intermittent scenes—which admittedly are more the stuff of story than novel—occupy less than half of the book. The rest is an artificial montage of side-shows meant to refract the themes of terrorism, cruelty, and endangered childhood…. [This is] thematic overkill of appalling dimensions. A great pity; because such heavyhanded use of familiar, generalized material takes the focus too much away from [the main character] … and quite buries a special little story that should have been allowed to grow, or at least to speak for itself. (pp. 533-34)