Awards

• Short-listed for Cybils 2021

Overview

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.

Full Product Details

9781536215526

Table of Contents

Reviews

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) Eugene Yelchin's new memoir, The Genius Under the Table, is an extraordinary work of memory told with clear-sightedness and ironic good humor, both disguising a great deal of pathos. This book is a recipe for survival for us all in a world growing tougher by the day. --David Small, Caldecott Medal winner and National Book Award Finalist for Stitches I read Eugene Yelchin's sad, funny memoir with tears and laughter. It is told with such exquisite humor and illustrated with such wonderful, biting drawings that, in spite of its darkness, I savored every word and every picture. A treat. --Uri Shulevitz, winner of the Caldecott Medal and three Caldecott Honors

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) Author Eugene Yelchin gives readers an honest look at what his life was like growing up in Soviet Russia. . . . I believe this book definitely should be included in upper elementary and middle school libraries. -School Library Connection Eugene Yelchin's new memoir, The Genius Under the Table, is an extraordinary work of memory told with clear-sightedness and ironic good humor, both disguising a great deal of pathos. This book is a recipe for survival for us all in a world growing tougher by the day. -David Small, Caldecott Medal winner and National Book Award Finalist for Stitches I read Eugene Yelchin's sad, funny memoir with tears and laughter. It is told with such exquisite humor and illustrated with such wonderful, biting drawings that, in spite of its darkness, I savored every word and every picture. A treat. -Uri Shulevitz, winner of the Caldecott Medal and three Caldecott Honors

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) Author Eugene Yelchin gives readers an honest look at what his life was like growing up in Soviet Russia. . . . I believe this book definitely should be included in upper elementary and middle school libraries. --School Library Connection Eugene Yelchin's new memoir, The Genius Under the Table, is an extraordinary work of memory told with clear-sightedness and ironic good humor, both disguising a great deal of pathos. This book is a recipe for survival for us all in a world growing tougher by the day. --David Small, Caldecott Medal winner and National Book Award Finalist for Stitches I read Eugene Yelchin's sad, funny memoir with tears and laughter. It is told with such exquisite humor and illustrated with such wonderful, biting drawings that, in spite of its darkness, I savored every word and every picture. A treat. --Uri Shulevitz, winner of the Caldecott Medal and three Caldecott Honors

Eugene Yelchin's new memoir, The Genius Under the Table, is an extraordinary work of memory told with clear-sightedness and ironic good humor, both disguising a great deal of pathos. This book is a recipe for survival for us all in a world growing tougher by the day. --David Small, Caldecott Medal winner and National Book Award Finalist for Stitches I read Eugene Yelchin's sad, funny memoir with tears and laughter. It is told with such exquisite humor and illustrated with such wonderful, biting drawings that, in spite of its darkness, I savored every word and every picture. A treat. --Uri Shulevitz, winner of the Caldecott Medal and three Caldecott Honors

Author Information

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.

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