I Wish I Didn’t Have to Tell You This: A Graphic Memoir Paperback by Eugene Yelchin; Illustrated by Eugene Yelchin

Product Details

• Publisher: Candlewick (2026-09-29)
• Language: English
• Paperback: 432 pages
• ISBN-13: 9781536253740
• Item Weight: 595.35 grams
• Dimensions: 22.86 x 15.24 x 2.87 cm

Winner of the National Jewish Book Award for Children’s and Young Adult Literature

"By turns heartbreaking and gut-wrenching, Eugene Yelchin’s eloquent memoir is both a cautionary tale about the sacrifices demanded by a government that lies, denies, conceals, and coerces its citizens into compliance and a poignant love letter to his past." — Candace Fleming, author of the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award winner and Los Angeles Times Book Prize winner The Family Romanov

No longer the creative little boy under his grandmother’s table, Yevgeny is now a young adult, pursuing his artistic dreams under the constant threat of the KGB’s stranglehold on Russia’s creative scene. When a chance encounter with an American woman opens him up to a world of romance and possibility, Yevgeny believes he has found his path to the future—and freedom overseas. But the threat of being drafted into the military and sent to fight in Afghanistan changes everything in a terrible instant, and he takes drastic measures to decide his fate, leading to unthinkable consequences in a mental hospital. With bold art bringing a vivid reality to life, National Book Award Finalist and Newbery Honoree Eugene Yelchin’s sequel to the acclaimed memoir The Genius Under the Table returns to Yevgeny’s saga, balancing the terror and oppression of Soviet Russia with the author’s signature charm and dark wit. I Wish I Didn't Have to Tell You This shines a stark spotlight on history while offering a poignant, nuanced, and powerfully resonant look at growing up in—and ultimately leaving—Cold War Russia in the early 1980s.

About the Author

Eugene Yelchin is a Russian American artist best known as a creator of books for children and young adults. He is the coauthor and illustrator of The Assassination of Brangwain Spurge, a National Book Award finalist, and the illustrator of The Rooster Prince of Breslov, which won a National Jewish Book Award, and Won Ton: A Cat Tale Told in Haiku, which has received more than thirty honors. He is the author-illustrator of the middle-grade novel Breaking Stalin’s Nose, which received a Newbery Honor and has been translated into ten languages, and the middle-grade memoir The Genius Under the Table, which was an Association of Jewish Libraries Sydney Taylor Honor Book. In 2026, he won a National Jewish Book Award for his young adult memoir, I Wish I Didn’t Have to Tell You This. Eugene Yelchin lives in California.