The Genius Under the Table
Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain
Age 10+
People & Places
An Association of Jewish Libraries Sydney Taylor Honor Winner
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.
Creators
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.
Reviews
Darkly humorous. . . Yelchin’s breezy pencil illustrations brim with a charm and childlike energy few artists can capture.
The New York Times Book Review
The self-effacing narrative seamlessly blends in Cold War history, Soviet politics, and loving family interchanges, and Yelchin’s sly illustrations appear on almost every page. There’s not a lot of material about this time period, and this humorous, informative, and engaging memoir will keep readers entertained.
Booklist (starred review)
This memoir of [Yelchin’s] adolescence is a forthright, darkly humorous and indelible portrait of an artist emerging. . . Yelchin, wonderfully, allows his text and pictures to interrupt each other with glee, reminding us how life begets art. It certainly does here.
The Horn Book (starred review)
Yelchin delivers a darkly humorous slice-of-life account of growing up in the Soviet Union. . . . Humorous, heartbreaking, and ultimately hopeful
Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
In this frank, engaging memoir, Yelchin (Spy Runner) recounts his childhood in the U.S.S.R. as his boyhood self, Yevgeny, perceives and ponders it. . . . At once comical and disquieting, the book is an illuminating introduction to a young life in the former Soviet Union.
Publishers Weekly (starred review)
