Yelchin, Eugene 1956-

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Yelchin, Eugene 1956-

Personal

Born 1956, in Leningrad, USSR (now St. Petersburg, Russia); immigrated to United States, 1983; mother a dance teacher; married Mary Kuryla (a writer); children: Isaac, Ezra. Education: Leningrad Institute for Theatre Arts, degree (set design); University of Southern California, master's degree (film production). Religion: Jewish.

Addresses

Home—Topanga, CA. Agent—Steven Malk, Writers House, 3368 Governor Dr., No. 224F, San Diego, CA 92122. E-mail—[email protected].

Career

Illustrator, fine-art painter, and filmmaker. Set and costume designer for Soviet theatre until 1983; Boston Globe, Boston, MA, editorial illustrator, beginning 1983; storyboard artist, beginning mid-1980s; director of television commercials, beginning 1990s. Exhibitions: Paintings exhibited in museums and galleries in Europe and United States.

Member

Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, Directors Guild of America.

Awards, Honors

Tomi DePaola Illustration Award, Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, 2006.

Illustrator

Gary Clemente, Cosom Gets an Ear, Modern Signs Press (Los Alamitos, CA), 1994.

Karen Beaumont, Who Ate All the Cookie Dough?, Henry Holt (New York, NY), 2008.

Musharraf Ali Farooqui, The Cobbler's Holiday; or, Why Ants Don't Have Shoes, Roaring Book Press (New York, NY), 2008.

Ann Hodgman, The House of a Million Pets, Henry Holt (New York, NY), 2008.

(With Mary Kuryla-Yelchin as The Ghost Society), Ghost Files: The Haunting Truth, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 2008.

Heart of a Snowman, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 2009.

Won Ton, Henry Holt (New York, NY), 2009.

Seven Hungry Babies, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 2010.

The Rooster Prince of Breslov, Clarion Books (New York, NY), 2010.

Contributor of illustrations to periodicals and newspapers.

Sidelights

Born in the Soviet Union, Eugene Yelchin trained as a stage designer and worked in Russian theatre before leaving that communist country in 1983 and coming to the United States. In his adopted country, he established a new career as an illustrator while also attending film school at the University of Southern California. In addition to gaining respect for his work in advertising art and film—he designed the first polar-bear advertisements used by Coca Cola—Yelchin is a widely exhibited fine-art painter who has also found an outlet for his creativity in children's picture books.

Among Yelchin's picture-book projects are creating illustrations for Musharraf Ali Farooqi's Persian folktale retelling The Cobbler's Holiday; or, Why Ants Don't Wear Shoes, Karen Beaumont's Who Ate All the Cookie Dough?, and Ann Hodgman's The House of a Million Pets. In Beaumont's story, a lift-the-flap book about a kangaroo's search for a cookie-dough thief, Yelchin creates what School Library Journal contributor Marge Loch-Wouters described as "stylized gouache illustrations" that feature the artist's characteristic "light, humorous touch." Farooqi's "dainty, droll fable" is enlivened with "a modish Jazz Age aesthetic" that includes what a Publishers Weekly critic described as "flappers and dandies sport[ing] ritzy top hats and beaded caps," while in Kirkus Reviews a critic concluded that Yelchin's use of "shifting perspectives and placement add … to the fun" of Farooqi's tale.

Hoberman's The House of a Million Pets is a memoir of the author's experiences sharing her rural New England home with a menagerie of critters over many years. Described by New York Times Book Review contributor J.D. Biersdorfer as "part autobiography, part pet-care guide," The House of a Million Pets benefits from "Yelchin's black-and-white illustrations [which] add a note of whimsy." Featuring everything from cats and dogs to bunnies, voles, canaries, a prairie dog, and dozens of pygmy mice, the artist's "realistic, expressive animal drawings" help make the book "a natural for reading aloud," according to Booklist critic Debbie Carton. In School Library Journal Patricia Manning predicted that Yelchin's "small, soft black-and-white illustrations" are "certain to prompt pet-craving urges" in young readers, while a Kirkus Reviews critic dubbed the art for The House of a Million Pets "absolutely charming."

Biographical and Critical Sources

PERIODICALS

Booklist, September 1, 2007, Debbie Carton, review of The House of a Million Pets, p. 110.

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, November, 2007, Deborah Stevenson, review of The House of a Million Pets, p. 125.

Denver Westworld, September, 2006, Michael Paglia, "Eugene Yelchin: A Thousand Casualties."

Horn Book, January-February, 2008, Tanya D. Auger, review of The House of a Million Pets, p. 111.

Kirkus Reviews, August 1, 2007, review of The House of a Million Pets; August 15, 2008, review of The Cobbler's Holiday; or, Why Ants Don't Wear Shoes.

New York Times Book Review, October 14, 2007, J.D. Biersdorfer, review of The House of a Million Pets, p. 21.

Orange County Weekly, November, 1997, Rebecca Schoenkopf, "Shroud of Yelchin: Russian Artist Is a Mystery."

Publishers Weekly, September 3, 2007, review of The House of a Million Pets, p. 59; September 15, 2008, review of The Cobbler's Holiday, p. 66.

School Library Journal, December, 2007, Patricia Manning, review of The House of a Million Pets, p. 152; July, 2008, Marge Loch-Wouters, review of Who Ate All the Cookie Dough?, p. 66; September, 2008, Mary Jean Smith, review of The Cobbler's Holiday, p. 145.