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.

Binding Type: Hardcover
Publisher: Candlewick Press (MA)
Published: 10/05/2021
ISBN: 9781536215526
Pages: 208

Review Citations: Booklist 06/01/2021 pg. 66
Horn Book Magazine 09/01/2021 pg. 129
Publishers Weekly 08/30/2021