Edit multiple models in one UI

I've searched around but haven't found a concise example for this yet.

I have an object graph with nested data such as coming from Entity Framework
Parent
    Multiple Children
          Multiple Children

I need to provide the user a way to modify/create the parent as well as the children in as simple a way as possible in a single UI. How can I accomplish this using Kendo MVC with MS MVC 5? If possible I'd rather not manually create a ViewModel and have to do translation between the object graph and the ViewModel. If that's the only solution then I guess that's what I have to do but I was hoping to be able to use the EF model directly. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.