The wall : growing up behind the Iron Curtain

The wall : growing up behind the Iron Curtain / Peter Sís. -- New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, c2007.
[52] pages : ill. (some col.), maps (some col.) ; 32 cm.
1st ed.
"Frances Foster books"--Title page.
Maps on endpapers.
ISBN: 9780374347017 (hc.)

1. Authors, American -- 20th century – Biography. 2. Czech Americans – Biography. 3. Czechoslovakia -- History -- 1945-1992. 4. Czechoslovakia -- Social conditions -- 1945-1992. 5. Illustrators -- United States – Biography. 6. Sís, Peter, 1949- -- Childhood and youth

741.642092

In words and drawings Sís reminisces about his childhood and youth in communist controlled Czechoslovakia. “As long as he could remember, he had loved to draw.” As an infant and child at home in Prague he was free to draw whatever he wanted, but when he went to school he was told what to draw and what to think. “Looking back, I can see how easy it is to brainwash a child. We were like sheep … until music from the free world—rock ‘n’ roll and the Beatles—made a crack in the wall.” As a youth during the Prague Spring he became part of a rock group and a radio disc jockey until the Russian tanks moved in and the government began to watch and question everybody. In Los Angeles in 1984 he had a chance to defect and he took it. “Now when my American family goes to visit my Czech family in the colorful city of Prague, it is hard to convince them it was ever a dark place full of fear, suspicion, and lies…”