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The Sapling: A Novel
An exquisite debut autobiographical novel about a powerful bond between a young boy and his teacher; an excavation of art, memory, grief, and transformative love.
At the beginning of sixth grade, newly admitted to a special school for the arts, Marc meets Klara Bloem. Klara is an art teacher, an immigrant to Toronto from South Africa, a devoted naturalist, a painter, and a passionate reader. Marc, an introspective boy experiencing upheavals at home and with friends, instantly connects with Klara’s sharp sense of humor, her keen attention, and her passion for books and art—and it’s clear she feels their connection, too.
She is forty-four; he is twelve.
Those first years glow with special intensity. As Marc and Klara spend hours on the phone, snapping photographs in woods and fields, immersed in the art and curios of her past life in South Africa, and exchanging letters over summer break, Marc feels the creative potential she sees in him beginning to take shape. But he also feels the scrutiny their unusual connection attracts. When he moves on to high school, their calls become less frequent, and their visits grow short. As the memories of those days become hazy and hard to access, he misses the brilliance of their early connection. Years later, when he is working as an actor in Los Angeles, Klara’s daughter Eva reaches out to deliver heartbreaking news, and it all comes rushing back in a flush of color.
With a rare and dazzling tenderness, Bendavid offers us a deep glimpse into an unusual bond, its loss, and the questions it raises. In the tradition of writers like André Aciman, Ben Lerner, and Sheila Heti, Jacarandas vibrates with the tension of the everyday, and with the world of beauty that lives just beyond.
At the beginning of sixth grade, newly admitted to a special school for the arts, Marc meets Klara Bloem. Klara is an art teacher, an immigrant to Toronto from South Africa, a devoted naturalist, a painter, and a passionate reader. Marc, an introspective boy experiencing upheavals at home and with friends, instantly connects with Klara’s sharp sense of humor, her keen attention, and her passion for books and art—and it’s clear she feels their connection, too.
She is forty-four; he is twelve.
Those first years glow with special intensity. As Marc and Klara spend hours on the phone, snapping photographs in woods and fields, immersed in the art and curios of her past life in South Africa, and exchanging letters over summer break, Marc feels the creative potential she sees in him beginning to take shape. But he also feels the scrutiny their unusual connection attracts. When he moves on to high school, their calls become less frequent, and their visits grow short. As the memories of those days become hazy and hard to access, he misses the brilliance of their early connection. Years later, when he is working as an actor in Los Angeles, Klara’s daughter Eva reaches out to deliver heartbreaking news, and it all comes rushing back in a flush of color.
With a rare and dazzling tenderness, Bendavid offers us a deep glimpse into an unusual bond, its loss, and the questions it raises. In the tradition of writers like André Aciman, Ben Lerner, and Sheila Heti, Jacarandas vibrates with the tension of the everyday, and with the world of beauty that lives just beyond.
- GenresCanada
288 pages, Hardcover
Published September 23, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
September 26, 2025
An autobiographical coming-of-age novel about an unconventional friendship between a student and his teacher.
At the beginning of grade 6, Marc is admitted to a school of the arts in Toronto where he meets art teacher, Klara Bloem, an immigrant from South Africa who is a mother to three children around Marc's age. The two are kindred spirits bonding over a love of art, books and nature - he is 12 years old and she is 44.
The relationship is intense during Marc's middle school years with hours spent on the phone, get-togethers outside of school and long letters during summer breaks. Their contact becomes less frequent as he moves to high school and then into adulthood and Marc misses the connection they once had.
The Sapling is beautifully-written - a fascinating, although admittedly a bit disconcerting, debut novel. I was completely absorbed in this thoughtful character focused story. Such a tender, touching exploration of an important relationship in one young man's life and how it changed over 25 years.
At the beginning of grade 6, Marc is admitted to a school of the arts in Toronto where he meets art teacher, Klara Bloem, an immigrant from South Africa who is a mother to three children around Marc's age. The two are kindred spirits bonding over a love of art, books and nature - he is 12 years old and she is 44.
The relationship is intense during Marc's middle school years with hours spent on the phone, get-togethers outside of school and long letters during summer breaks. Their contact becomes less frequent as he moves to high school and then into adulthood and Marc misses the connection they once had.
The Sapling is beautifully-written - a fascinating, although admittedly a bit disconcerting, debut novel. I was completely absorbed in this thoughtful character focused story. Such a tender, touching exploration of an important relationship in one young man's life and how it changed over 25 years.
October 1, 2025
I’ve sat on this one for a couple of days before posting. There’s something about this book. I hadn’t realised that it was autobiographical - autofiction - as I was reading it. Not sure how I missed that but apparently I did.
I’m left wondering whether that changes my reaction to this title at all. I think not, but…
This is creepy - but at the same time it’s quite beautiful. Or should I have that reversed? That it is beautiful but really creepy?
On page 66 there’s a line about how there is ‘… something sinister’ about the suburbs. My reply to that was: Hah hah! There is something sinister about this book. We have a (presumably) unreliable narrator - only seeing his perspective, his interpretation of events… and I am left wondering WTF is going on here. This is totally unsettling (I think to anyone, not just because I was a teacher).
What if I’d known it was auto-fiction while reading? Would my responses have been any different? I hope not… but… the degree of intimacy between the two is, as mentioned above, so creepy. The scene from which the title derives is really really creepy.
This is a very unsettling read… but it was a compulsive read. I sat and read it in one go. Yes it is relatively short - lots of pages with no text, or minimal text. I was drawn to it, and didn’t want to put it down, notwithstanding that I was questioning the sanity of the protagonist and the motivation of the teacher (which I never really did figure out to my satisfaction). Why she engages like this? Did she actually engage like this? (Apparently so…)
There is a line - on page 202 - where Marc asserts that “I begin to realise how much of our friendship has existed in the imaginary, and for how long.” Well that had me wondering all over again. Is this real or fantasy? Is he sane? Or delusional?
Again… had I realised that this was auto-fiction, would it have landed the same way?? I just don’t know… Does it matter? I just don’t know… seeing as the deed has been done and I read it through that lens. I can’t unring that bell.
There are other things going for this title as well - not big deals, mostly in passing, but they land: about Jewishness; about South Africa and apartheid; about quality of life and MAiD.
And for sure even though the author - though born and raised in Canada - is now living between Toronto and L.A… this is a love letter to Toronto and the surrounding burbs. Clearly identifiable locations and schools (even where not named - he must have gone to Claude Watson before Unionville High School? A school field trip to the AGO to see the Barnes Exhibit (I remember when that was the hottest ticket in town!!) References to streets and landscape features (i.e. Mill Pond) in the top end of the city and the area to the north (Vaughn, Aurora, Richmond Hill, etc.).
As I mentioned at the start… I’ve thought about this for a couple of days now. I wasn’t sure whether to score this high or low… and I think I’ll go middle to high.
There’s something about this book…
I’m left wondering whether that changes my reaction to this title at all. I think not, but…
This is creepy - but at the same time it’s quite beautiful. Or should I have that reversed? That it is beautiful but really creepy?
On page 66 there’s a line about how there is ‘… something sinister’ about the suburbs. My reply to that was: Hah hah! There is something sinister about this book. We have a (presumably) unreliable narrator - only seeing his perspective, his interpretation of events… and I am left wondering WTF is going on here. This is totally unsettling (I think to anyone, not just because I was a teacher).
What if I’d known it was auto-fiction while reading? Would my responses have been any different? I hope not… but… the degree of intimacy between the two is, as mentioned above, so creepy. The scene from which the title derives is really really creepy.
This is a very unsettling read… but it was a compulsive read. I sat and read it in one go. Yes it is relatively short - lots of pages with no text, or minimal text. I was drawn to it, and didn’t want to put it down, notwithstanding that I was questioning the sanity of the protagonist and the motivation of the teacher (which I never really did figure out to my satisfaction). Why she engages like this? Did she actually engage like this? (Apparently so…)
There is a line - on page 202 - where Marc asserts that “I begin to realise how much of our friendship has existed in the imaginary, and for how long.” Well that had me wondering all over again. Is this real or fantasy? Is he sane? Or delusional?
Again… had I realised that this was auto-fiction, would it have landed the same way?? I just don’t know… Does it matter? I just don’t know… seeing as the deed has been done and I read it through that lens. I can’t unring that bell.
There are other things going for this title as well - not big deals, mostly in passing, but they land: about Jewishness; about South Africa and apartheid; about quality of life and MAiD.
And for sure even though the author - though born and raised in Canada - is now living between Toronto and L.A… this is a love letter to Toronto and the surrounding burbs. Clearly identifiable locations and schools (even where not named - he must have gone to Claude Watson before Unionville High School? A school field trip to the AGO to see the Barnes Exhibit (I remember when that was the hottest ticket in town!!) References to streets and landscape features (i.e. Mill Pond) in the top end of the city and the area to the north (Vaughn, Aurora, Richmond Hill, etc.).
As I mentioned at the start… I’ve thought about this for a couple of days now. I wasn’t sure whether to score this high or low… and I think I’ll go middle to high.
There’s something about this book…
October 23, 2025
This autobiographical novel of an unsettling and intense relationship between a young boy and his much older teacher, Klara, riveted me. Marc is looking back and trying to make sense of his experiences in this relationship. While the relationship was intense and had a lot of shared intimacy, it was not sexual. But there was definitely a secretive aspect to it that made me, the reader, feel creeped out and waiting for it to cross the line into the sexual. While many, if not most, readers today would consider it crossed a line, the fact that it remained nonsexual is part of what I found really intriguing as it raised a lot of questions.
Having had my own experience of mentoring that later turned into friendship (when I was a young adult) with a middle school music teacher, this can be a very meaningful experience. Later, as a university professor I reflected constantly on the appropriate ways to mentor students, especially those from marginalized groups, for whom mentors are often an important factor. Now, I know this isn’t what was happening in this book, but it’s part of the reason I found the tensions and boundaries to be so rich in this book. Marc’s relationship with Klara was powerfully impactful in his future life direction, but I kept feeling it was too intense and took up too much space in his life, because of his age at the time. We don’t know how he will assess the relationship after having written about it. Did it give him the lifeline he needed to make future life choices or was it too much of an obsession for a child that marked him for the rest of his years in an undue way?
This brings me then to the question of what is love. Klara seemed to feed a need of young Marc’s soul that wasn’t being met elsewhere. But we keep banging up against the question of whether it was ok… This kind of love doesn’t really have a name in English. And while power had a huge role, doesn’t it often play a big role in love?
Finally, the theme of grief was beautifully and powerfully expressed.
Bendavid is a gorgeous writer and I just want to read more of anything he writes. I’m hoping that having gotten this book out, he has more in him. It was one of my favourite books of the last few years.
Having had my own experience of mentoring that later turned into friendship (when I was a young adult) with a middle school music teacher, this can be a very meaningful experience. Later, as a university professor I reflected constantly on the appropriate ways to mentor students, especially those from marginalized groups, for whom mentors are often an important factor. Now, I know this isn’t what was happening in this book, but it’s part of the reason I found the tensions and boundaries to be so rich in this book. Marc’s relationship with Klara was powerfully impactful in his future life direction, but I kept feeling it was too intense and took up too much space in his life, because of his age at the time. We don’t know how he will assess the relationship after having written about it. Did it give him the lifeline he needed to make future life choices or was it too much of an obsession for a child that marked him for the rest of his years in an undue way?
This brings me then to the question of what is love. Klara seemed to feed a need of young Marc’s soul that wasn’t being met elsewhere. But we keep banging up against the question of whether it was ok… This kind of love doesn’t really have a name in English. And while power had a huge role, doesn’t it often play a big role in love?
Finally, the theme of grief was beautifully and powerfully expressed.
Bendavid is a gorgeous writer and I just want to read more of anything he writes. I’m hoping that having gotten this book out, he has more in him. It was one of my favourite books of the last few years.
October 19, 2025
I read a full 1/4 of this work of “autofiction” and for a whole slew of reasons I couldn’t complete it. I was quite taken aback by The Sapling and surprised it was even published. A love letter to a dead teacher (“Marc” was 11 and Klara Bloem was 43 when they met at a Toronto school for the arts), the “novel” felt creepily hagiographic and oppressively, narrowly first person. Essentially no conventions of the novel form are present. This is all, and I mean all, telling and no showing; no characterization to speak of; no conflict or tension etc. as far as I got. Okay—yes, there’s a setting of sorts: lots about the natural world this Wordsworthian child mystically communes with, all described in lambent, lyrical, holy-toned prose.
Oh, and the book begins with an “advertisement” for a lovely MAiD (medical assistance in dying) procedure to boot. I wondered when the voluntary euthanasia that Canada has become world famous for would begin to show up in “fiction”. Well, here it is: we have the carefully curated scrapbooks for the children, completed in Klara’s dying days; the lethal injection scheduled for 1 pm; an ordered list of the pharmaceutical injectables to be sent through the terminally ill teacher’s veins.
Unfortunately, Bendavid wasn’t successful in making this reader appreciate his beloved teacher. The obsessive, worshipful prose is just deadly.
I saw a lot of inappropriate student-teacher interactions growing up. Good thing there is now a teachers’ regulatory body in Ontario. “Klara” was decidedly out of line.
Oh, and the book begins with an “advertisement” for a lovely MAiD (medical assistance in dying) procedure to boot. I wondered when the voluntary euthanasia that Canada has become world famous for would begin to show up in “fiction”. Well, here it is: we have the carefully curated scrapbooks for the children, completed in Klara’s dying days; the lethal injection scheduled for 1 pm; an ordered list of the pharmaceutical injectables to be sent through the terminally ill teacher’s veins.
Unfortunately, Bendavid wasn’t successful in making this reader appreciate his beloved teacher. The obsessive, worshipful prose is just deadly.
I saw a lot of inappropriate student-teacher interactions growing up. Good thing there is now a teachers’ regulatory body in Ontario. “Klara” was decidedly out of line.
August 29, 2025
This book was a difficult one. The Sapling is an autobiographical telling of a relationship Marc Bendavid had with his 43 year old teacher when he was 11, and the grief and loss he experiences over the subsequent 25 years related to the ending/changing of the relationship. Right away from reading the back synopsis I knew that this book was going to require a courageous reader to pick up, and a nuanced reading to get through it. The topic of an intimate relationship with a teacher is a difficult and heavy one, which the book invites the reader to examine in this situation with an open mind. The first hand account of the author’s grief, sense of loss, and confusion were well written and the style of writing was beautiful. My teacher heart struggled with reading about this relationship if I’m being honest.
September 25, 2025
This book quickly became one of my favourite books of all time, and is the best book of 2025. The writing style was beautiful, the words flowed and melted together, all so unique but fit together well. His descriptions of nature and art were surreal, I felt I was in the forest and present with the art.
It was fast paced in the sense the days and years flew by quick, but I didn’t feel like anything was missing, I felt like I was with them for their lifetime, it was incredible to be with them through this unique relationship and explore their development. I truly felt I understood the love and care Marc had for Klara, and the grief was palpable.
I cried numerous times while reading this, and sobbed for quite a while upon finishing. It provided me with so much insight into my own feelings regarding safe adults in my life, and put me in touch with my own longing and grief. My heart was physically aching.
It was fast paced in the sense the days and years flew by quick, but I didn’t feel like anything was missing, I felt like I was with them for their lifetime, it was incredible to be with them through this unique relationship and explore their development. I truly felt I understood the love and care Marc had for Klara, and the grief was palpable.
I cried numerous times while reading this, and sobbed for quite a while upon finishing. It provided me with so much insight into my own feelings regarding safe adults in my life, and put me in touch with my own longing and grief. My heart was physically aching.
August 20, 2025
The sales rep who sent me my ARC of this described it as 'the nicest book coming out this year', and I think she might be right. 'Nice', in this case, doesn't mean 'always happy', nor even without moments of great sadness (it made me cry on a few occasions), but rather it's a book completely free of any touch of malice. It tells the story, through short, letter-like chapters, of a friendship that was as important as it was unconventional. The beauty of it is conveyed through Marc Bendavid's delicate prose, steeped in heartfelt emotion. This is a book that is filled with yearning - to remember, to explore, to immortalize, to understand.
If you aren't a fan of character studies, you might find The Sapling a bit slow, as it has no great overarching plot beyond the exploration of the central relationship, but if you're willing to take a chance on a book that is quite unlike any other, I think you'll find it very worth it.
If you aren't a fan of character studies, you might find The Sapling a bit slow, as it has no great overarching plot beyond the exploration of the central relationship, but if you're willing to take a chance on a book that is quite unlike any other, I think you'll find it very worth it.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews