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Art. Biography & Autobiography. Juvenile Nonfiction. Reference. HTML: 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..… (more)
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Eugene Yelchin excels in
He relates about living with his father, mother, grandmother and older brother in a one-room apartment with a tiny bathroom. No bedroom, can you imagine? Just to sleep, his fatherspent the evening moving their furniture.The dining room table was big. Grandmother slept on the couch to one side of the table. His older brother slept on three chairs near the table. his parents as per his drawing may have slept on a day bed on the other side of the table. When he was six, the author slept on a cot that had springs that stretched the fabric tight like a trampoline. He had to be careful to be still and not bounce to the floor. After he was in the cot, his father pushed him under the table. The tablecloth gave him privacy that the others did not have.
This reminded me of when our family had relatives come to visit, and I slept on two chairs. It was comfortable, painful in fact.
We also get a peek into the lack of food available, the anti-Semitism that the family endured, and the government's pervasive indoctrination to follow the rules.
I love this and want to read anything more that I can find by the author, I think it is an overlooked masterpiece.
I received an Uncorrected proof of this book from the publishers as a win from LibraryThing. My thoughts and ideas in this review are entirely my own.
Yelchin tells stories big and small with a lot of humor and the illustrations are fantastic. Despite the general light hearted nature of the narrative, some horrible things happen, which range from some personal tragedies to bigger political issues. Baryshnikov finally defects and young Yevgeny's secret talent is discovered. But life's never just a party. With all its ups and downs, the memoir captures a joyful, yet hard life full of questions and some answers.
Recommended for those who like tomcats, Malevich, blue jeans, cubes and Mandelstam.
Thanks to the publisher and LibraryThing for an ARC of the book. I thoroughly enjoyed it!
Tales of the Soviet Union often carry a bit of dark depression with them, but this one manages to include a certain degree of levity along with the persistent curiosity of a young narrator. Yevgeny is a young boy who needs to
I would recommend it.