A group of parents, trapped in middle-class stability, deal with marriage, kids and their suburban life in very different ways…

There's Todd, the handsome stay-at-home-dad — the one the other mothers admire in a silent look-but-do-not-touch fashion. He's trying (for his wife's sake) to pass his bar exam although he doesn't want to be a lawyer, and in a desperate attempt to reclaim his youth joins a midnight touch-football team…and starts a passionate affair with Sarah. Sarah is a lapsed feminist who isn't quite sure how she ended up being a traditional wife. She's the kind of mother who (shock horror) is capable of forgetting her daughter's snack, and in a moment's rebellion dares to kiss Todd in front of the mother's group. And let's not forget Sarah's husband, Richard, a successful businessman who develops an obsession for internet exhibitionist Slutty Kay, and consequently spends more time on-line than with his own wife and daughter.

A brilliantly perceptive novel and box-office smash, Little Children is a unique mix of the comical and the compassionate.

Tom Perrotta