Breaking Stalin's Nose

Breaking Stalin's Nose is a 2011 children's historical novel written and illustrated by Eugene Yelchin. It is set in Moscow during the Stalin era and shows a boy's disillusion with his hero Stalin after his father is unjustly arrested. The novel was given a 2012 Newbery Honor award for excellence in children's literature along with numerous other awards and distinctions.

Translations of the novel into Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, French, Estonian, Italian, Romanian and Turkish have been published.

The book opens in either the late 1940s or early 1950s in Moscow with 10 year old Sasha Zaichik, a devoted Communist youth, writing a letter of praise to current Soviet leader, Joseph Stalin, on the eve of his induction into the mandatory organization the Young Pioneers. His American mother is dead and he resides in a communal apartment with his high ranking party member father. He believes his mother died naturally of illness, but it is strongly implied throughout the book that his father was so zealous in his work he denounced his own wife resulting her execution. After writing his letter Sasha goes to the communal kitchen to wait for his father to get home from work and it is revealed he and his father are somewhat outcasts who stay primarily in their own personal room. Sasha gives his letter to his father who he believes will give it to Stalin since his father is a top party member and works for the police state as a spy. Before they go to bed Sasha's father randomly tells him he should go to an aunt for assistance if ever they are separated.

In the middle of the night Sasha's father is arrested by the secret police, apparently on the tip of a neighbor called Stukachov, who desired the Zaichik family's large room for his own family. While a bewildered and confused Sasha watches Stukachov tidies the ransacked room, moves his family in, and tells him he will enjoy growing up in an orphanage. Sasha decides there has been some sort of mistake and he will go see Stalin personally to get the matter straightened out. He is chased away from the Kremlin by armed guards and heads to his aunt's home instead, but this aunt doesn't want to get involved and sends him away with a small amount of money, because she and her husband have an infant and fear arrest themselves if they get involved. He sleeps in the basement of the aunt's apartment building and goes to school as if everything is just fine, although he knows his father will not come to the ceremony that afternoon.