Moshe Kai Cavalin, UCLA Child Prodigy, Wrote Bestseller in Spare Time; Thinks You Can, Too!

Moshe Kai Cavelin via Facebook

Autobiography of a kid genius.

Kid graduated from East Los Angeles Community College in astrophysics with a 4.0 last year, at which point he transfered to UCLA for math. (His LinkedIn profile lists his expected graduation date as 2012. Uh, did we mention he has a LinkedIn profile?) When he's not playing the piano for grad-student events, Cavalin spends his days doing "kid stuff" like winning martial-arts trophies as tall as he is and explaining the concept of "wormholes" to airheaded NBC reporters (see video, below).

Oh, one more thing.

Somewhere in there, feeling a little under-accomplished, Cavalin wrote a fucking book. In Chinese manuscript. That is now a bestseller in three countries.

The Daily Bruin brings us up to speed with young Cavalin, who, last time he went viral, only had his associate's degree and like half the book written. Slacker!

Now that he's entered his teens, however, the time has come for Cavalin to share his secrets of success with the six billion or so humans who will never be as cool as he is.

But that's not how the child author sees it. His autobiography is actually more of a how-to guide, he tells the Bruin:

Its title translates in English to "We Can Do," to convey his belief in hard work as a path to accomplishment. Cavalin, now 13, said he ultimately hopes to inspire his peers to focus on their education.

"I wrote this book to show readers that I am not a genius. They too can accomplish the same things as I have in my life so far," said Cavalin, a talkative teen who also plays soccer and scuba dives.

It probably doesn't hurt to be born with a tiger mom and a Jewish dad. (Overachievers of the world, unite! Raise more crazy robot babies! That also appear freakishly calm and happy, all the damn time!) But Cavalin seems to be wired differently in general. He tells the Bruin that while growing up in the L.A. area, "it was upsetting to see kids becoming involved in gang activity because they were just wasting their time."

Also, he doesn't like video games.

Though Cavalin's book isn't out in English yet, it's already reached bestseller status in Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia. (Hear that, stoner youth? You thought the Asian influx was killing your GPA before -- get ready for child-prodigy pandemonium.) On a more optimistic note, if he can't find a publisher who'll print his book in English by December, he says he'll just do it himself -- and we can assure you, kid's word is gold -- so at least then we can all start on the same page.

Until that magical day, keep up with Cavalin 24/7 on his "public figure" Facebook profile, if you know what's good for you.

[@simone_electra/swilson@laweekly.com]