Honors and Exhibitions

The Rooster Prince of Breslov, published by Clarion Books (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) was named the winner of the 2010 NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARD in the category of Illustrated Children’s Books. The National Jewish Book Awards, the longest-running North American awards program of its kind in the field of Jewish literature. Given by the Jewish Book Council annually since 1948, the awards are designed to recognize outstanding books on Jewish topics each year.

press & Reviews

STARRED REVIEW “Gouache primary colors dominate, given depth by watery pinks, dark greens and black graphite outlines. Yelchin’s half-satiric figures pitch exaggeratedly forward, the rooster postures comically extreme.”

– Kirkus Reviews

STARRED REVIEW “Yelchin’s imaginative graphite and gouache illustrations bring to life this well-loved Yiddish folktale…”

– School Library Journal

“Yelchin underlines the story's subtlety and humor with expressively exaggerated poses and apt caricatures rendered in minimal line and vivid gouache. The naked old man imitating a rooster is a hoot; the queen's avoirdupois suggests that she lacks her son's good sense, however oddly expressed, while servants seen laboring hard in the background point up the need for a compassionate monarch.”

– Horn Book

“Strikingly witty and graceful illustrations add their own folkloric flavor.”

– Judaism.com

“…superb illustrations.”

– Summerbooks.com

"Illustrations express the psychological depths of the story through the images that are more archetypal than realistic ... Many of the double page spreads resemble stage sets, reflecting Yelchin’s work in the theatre." 

– Association of Jewish Libraries

"Illustrations capture the feel of the old country..."

– Politics and Prose