The Genius Under the Table: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain

With a masterful mix of comic timing and disarming poignancy, Newbery Honoree Eugene Yelchin offers a memoir of growing up in Cold War Russia.

Drama, family secrets, and a KGB spy in his own kitchen How will Yevgeny ever fulfill his parents' dream that he become a national hero when he doesn't even have his own room? He's not a star athlete or a legendary ballet dancer. In the tiny apartment he shares with his Baryshnikov-obsessed mother, poetry-loving father, continually outraged grandmother, and safely talented brother, all Yevgeny has is his little pencil, the underside of a massive table, and the doodles that could change everything. With equal amounts charm and solemnity, award-winning author and artist Eugene Yelchin recounts in hilarious detail his childhood in Cold War Russia as a young boy desperate to understand his place in his family.

Author: Eugene Yelchin
Publisher: Candlewick Press (MA)
Published: 10/12/2021
Pages: 208
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.88lbs
Size: 8.30h x 5.90w x 0.90d
ISBN: 9781536215526

About the Author
Eugene Yelchin is the co-author and illustrator of the 2018 National Book Award Finalist The Assassination of Brangwain Spurge, co-written with M. T. Anderson. A Tomie dePaola Illustrator Award Winner, he also received a Newbery Honor for his novel Breaking Stalin's Nose. Born in Leningrad, Russian-American Eugene Yelchin now lives in Topanga, California, with his family.