Nominated for a 1998 National Book Award for Young People's Literature, No Pretty Pictures: A Child of War is Anita Lobel's gripping memoir of surviving the Holocaust. A Caldecott-winning illustrator of such delightful picture books as On Market Street, it is difficult to believe Lobel endured the horrific childhood she did. From age 5 to age 10, Lobel spent what are supposed to be carefree years hiding from the Nazis, protecting her younger brother, being captured and marched from camp to camp, and surviving completely dehumanizing conditions. A terrifying story by any measure, Lobel's memoir is all the more haunting as told from the first-person, child's-eye view. Her girlhood voice tells it like it is, without irony or even complete understanding, but with matter-of-fact honesty and astonishing attention to detail. She carves vivid, enduring images into readers' minds. On hiding in the attic of the ghetto: "We were always told to be very quiet. The whispers of the trapped grown-ups sounded like the noise of insects rubbing their legs together." On being discovered while hiding in a convent: "They lined us up facing the wall. I looked at the dark red bricks in front of me and waited for the shots. When the shouting continued and the shots didn't come, I noticed my breath hanging in thin puffs in the air." On trying not to draw the attention of the Nazis: "I wanted to shrink away. To fold into a small invisible thing that had no detectable smell. No breath. No flesh. No sound."

It is a miracle that Lobel and her brother survived on their own in this world that any adult would find unbearable. Indeed, and appropriately, there are no pretty pictures here, and adults choosing to share this story with younger readers should make themselves readily available for explanations and comforting words. (The camps are full of excrement and death, all faithfully recorded in direct, unsparing language.) But this is a story that must be told, from the shocking beginning when a young girl watches the Nazis march into Krakow, to the final words of Lobel's epilogue: "My life has been good. I want more." (Ages 10 to 16) --Brangien Davis

From Publishers Weekly
Few admirers of Lobel's sunny picture book art (On Market Street) would guess at the terrors of Lobel's own childhood. Here, in beautifully measured prose, she offers a memoir that begins in 1939, when the author was five, as German soldiers march into her native Krakow; Lobel's adored father, the owner of a chocolate factory and a religious Jew, flees soon after, in the middle of the night ("He had kissed me in the night, and I did not know it"). Deportations begin, and before long the author and her younger brother (who is dressed as a girl) are sent to the country, in the care of their Niania (nanny). Thus the two children embark on years of flight, on a turbulent course involving assumed identities, blackmailers, a dangerous stay in the Krakow ghetto, concealment in a convent, capture and concentration camps. In 1945 the children are liberated, in Ravensbruck, and brought to Sweden to recuperate from what turns out to be tuberculosis, and they are eventually reunited with both parents. Lobel brings to these dramatic experiences an artist's sensibility for the telling detail, a seemingly unvarnished memory and heartstopping candor. Focused on survival, the child narrator does not pity herself or express her terror: she observes everyone keenly and cannily sizes them up. This piercing and graceful account is rewarding for readers of all ages. It may prove especially valuable for children who have graduated from Lobel's picture books and who may therefore feel they "know" her; this memoir would help such readers build a personal connection to WWII and its tragic lessons. A 12-page inset of family photos is included. Ages 10-up. Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal
Grade 6 Up-Lobel has written a haunting, honest, and ultimately life-affirming account of her childhood years in Nazi-occupied Poland. Born in Krakow to an affluent Jewish family, she and her younger brother were cared for by their nanny ("Niania"), a devout Catholic. Lobel was five when the Nazis arrived in Poland and her father left in the middle of the night. As the situation worsened, Niania took the children into hiding in the countryside while their mother remained in the city with fake identification papers. As the war continued, the siblings were hidden in various places, relying mostly on Niania to care for them, at great risk to herself. When Lobel and her brother were captured, Niania arranged to have the children delivered into the care of relatives inside the concentration camp at Plaszow. At the end of the war, Lobel, then 11, and her brother were sent to Sweden as refugees, where she thrived at a convalescent home while recovering from tuberculosis and was reunited with her parents. She ends the story with her family's emigration to the United States. The author's words are simple and straightforward, even when she describes the horror of life in the camp or the fear and loneliness of being separated from her family and nanny. This is a worthy addition to memoirs of war such as Esther Hautzig's The Endless Steppe (Hall, 1968) and Yoko Kawashima Watkins's So Far from the Bamboo Grove (Lothrop, 1986).Carol Fazioli, The Brearley School, New York City, NYCopyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The Washington Post Book World, Michael Patrick Hearn
...a unique survivor's tale, striking in its honesty, and a small masterpiece in its quiet way.

From Booklist
Gr. 6^-12. The truth of the child's viewpoint is the strength of this Holocaust survivor story, told with physical immediacy and no "pride of victimhood." Lobel's ebullient, gorgeously colored illustrated books--from the Caldecott Honor Book On Market Street (1982) to Toads and Diamonds (1996)--give no hint of her dark, terrifying childhood. Barely five years old when the Nazis came to her comfortable home in Poland, she spent the next five years in hiding and on the run; then she was captured and transported to concentration camps. Through the marches, hunger, mud, stench, and corpses, her younger brother was nearly always with her, disguised as a girl to hide his circumcision. Matter-of-factly, she tells how she protected him ("Once I found a raw potato in the mud. My brother and I took turns taking bites out of it"); in the Ravensbruck selections, she dragged him to the left, away from the chimneys. With the same quiet truth, she describes her childhood shame at being an "ugly, obvious Jew girl," a stigma she still felt in the two years she spent recovering from tuberculosis, nursed by kind caregivers in a Swedish sanatorium after the war. Looking back, she avoids sermonizing and analysis. There's a visceral physicalness to her memories of the terror ("the whispers of the trapped grown-ups sounded like the noise of insects rubbing their legs together") and in the elementals she celebrated when she was safe: the luxury of privacy, of hair, no lice, a flushing toilet, sheets white and clean, and the flat, slithering, sweet taste of butter. She always felt distant from her cold parents; it's the loss of Niania, the nanny who raised and sheltered her, that still breaks her heart. Older readers who remember her picture books will be stirred by her story of starting school at age 12 for the first time, the only dark kid with all the blonde Swedes, clumsy at gym and sports, an outsider, until she discovered she could draw. Hazel Rochman

From Kirkus Reviews
A haunting look back by Lobel, a Polish Jew who ``was born far, far away, on a bloody continent at a terrible time.'' Lobel writes of her life as a young girl, who ``was barely five years old when the war began.'' She and her three-year-old brother did not understand when her father disappeared in 1939 (to Russia, she later learned), but very soon they understood the words ``transported, deported, concentration camp and liquidation.'' Taken from a Benedictine convent that sheltered Jewish children, Lobel and her brother (by then, ten and eight) were first in Montelupi Prison, then in Ravensbro ck, where they were sick with lice, diarrhea, and tuberculosis. They were rescued and sent to Sweden to regain their health and eventually to be united with their parents. This is an inexpressibly sad book about a young girl who missed her childhood, yet survived to say that her life ``has been good. I want more.'' (b&w photos, not seen) (Memoir. 10-14) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


"This piercing and graceful account is rewarding for readers of all ages."

Publishers Weekly
"This piercing and graceful account is rewarding for readers of all ages."


"A compelling read, delicate yet powerful."

The New York Times Book Review
"Anita Lobel's disturbing memoir is neither sentimental nor exploitative...The memory is raw. The storytelling frames it. The message is that there is no meaning in this suffering."

Book Description
The beloved Caldecott Honor artist now recounts a tale of vastly different kind -- her own achingly potent memoir of a childhood of flight, imprisonment, and uncommon bravery in Nazi-occupied Poland. Anita Lobel was barely five when the war began and sixteen by the time she came to America from Sweden, where she had been sent to recover at the end of the war. This haunting book, illustrated with the author's archival photographs, is the remarkable account of her life during those years. Poised, forthright, and always ready to embrace life, Anita Lobel is the main character in the most personal story she will ever tell.Anita Lobel was barely five years old when World War II began and the Nazis burst into her home in Krakow, Poland, changing her life forever. She spent the days of her childhood in hiding with her brother--who was disguised as a girl--and their Catholic nanny in the countryside, the ghetto, and finally in a convent where the Nazis caught up with her. She was imprisoned in a succession of concentration camps until the end of the war. Sent by the Red Cross to recuperate in Sweden, she slowly blossomed as she discovered books and language and art. Since coming to the United States as a teenager, Anita Lobel has spent her life making pictures. She has never gone back. She has never looked back. Until now. 00-01 Tayshas High School Reading List Anita Lobel was barely five years old when World War II began and the Nazis burst into her home in Krakow, Poland, changing her life forever. She spent the days of her childhood in hiding with her brother--who was disguised as a girl--and their Catholic nanny in the countryside, the ghetto, and finally in a convent where the Nazis caught up with her. She was imprisoned in a succession of concentration camps until the end of the war. Sent by the Red Cross to recuperate in Sweden, she slowly blossomed as she discovered books and language and art. Since coming to the United States as a teenager, Anita Lobel has spent her life making pictures. She has never gone back. She has never looked back. Until now.

Card catalog description
The author, known as an illustrator of children's books, describes her experiences as a Polish Jew during World War II and for years in Sweden afterwards.

About the Author
Anita Lobel was born in Cracow, Poland, just before the beginning of World War II. In the proper Jewish household of her childhood there were several servants. One of them was Anita's beloved nanny, who had taken care of Anita and her younger brother since their birth. Throughout the war, this strong-willed Catholic countrywoman guarded Anita and her brother, passing them off as her own children. For five years they were moved from town to village until they were discovered hiding in a convent and taken to a concentration camp. Somehow they survived until liberation and were brought to Sweden. Eventually Anita's parents were located, and the family was reunited in Stockholm. There Anita went to high school and began taking art lessons. When the family emigrated to New York, Anita won a scholarship to Pratt Institute.In New York she met and married Arnold Lobel. She became a textile designer, working at home while their two children were growing up. One Christmas she gave Susan Hirschman, then Arnold Lobel's editor, three small scarves that she had made from some of the intricate flowery prints that she specialized in, Susan suggested she do a picture book, and the result was Sven's Bridge. The book was published in 1965 and made the New York Times Best Illustrated Books of the Year list that fall. (It was redesigned in full color and reissued by Greenwillow in 1992.)Anita soon discovered that she could combine the exuberance of her decorative fabric designs with the narrative form of picture books. There have been many books over the years, including pictures for texts by various writers; collaborations with Arnold, such as On Market Street and The Rose in My Garden; and her own adaptations from Scandinavian folk stories (King Rooster, Queen Hen; The Pancake; The Straw Maid).Some of Anita's most challenging favorites have been Princess Furball and Toads and Diamonds by Charlotte Huck; This Quiet Lady by Charlotte Zolotow; and The Cat and the Cook retold by Ethel Heins; as well as her own alphabet books Alison's Zinnia and Away from Home-and The Dwarf Giant, the art for which was inspired by Japanese theater. Her most recent work is her memoir of her childhood in war-torn Poland called No Pretty Pictures: A Child of War.Anita's interests in theater and music and foreign languages have served her well in her work both as an author and an illustrator. She has also designed clothes, embroidered tapestries, and designed stained glass windows. She has been an actress and a singer. "It is the 'drama' in a picture-book text that interests me the most," she has said. "I 'stage' the story the way a director might work on a theater piece. Even though I have been involved with picture books for many years, with each new text, whether or not I have written it, I am always looking for a new 'vision.' And in the past few years full-color printing techniques have been so improved that I have had a chance to rediscover the way I wanted to paint pictures when I was a young student in art school."

ANNOTATION

The author, known as an illustrator of children's books, describes her experiences as a Polish Jew during World War II and for years in Sweden afterwards.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

The beloved Caldecott Honor artist now recounts a tale of vastly different kind — her own achingly potent memoir of a childhood of flight, imprisonment, and uncommon bravery in Nazi-occupied Poland. Anita Lobel was barely five when the war began and sixteen by the time she came to America from Sweden, where she had been sent to recover at the end of the war. This haunting book, illustrated with the author's archival photographs, is the remarkable account of her life during those years. Poised, forthright, and always ready to embrace life, Anita Lobel is the main character in the most personal story she will ever tell.The beloved Caldecott Honor artist now recounts a tale of vastly different kind — her own achingly potent memoir of a childhood of flight, imprisonment, and uncommon bravery in Nazi-occupied Poland. Anita Lobel was barely five when the war began and sixteen by the time she came to America from Sweden, where she had been sent to recover at the end of the war. This haunting book, illustrated with the author's archival photographs, is the remarkable account of her life during those years. Poised, forthright, and always ready to embrace life, Anita Lobel is the main character in the most personal story she will ever tell.

SYNOPSIS

"I was born in Kraków, Poland. In a wrong place at a wrong time." The Caldecott Honor recipient Anita Lobel here recounts her childhood flight from Nazi-occupied Poland. Anita Lobel was barely five when the war began and 16 by the time she came to America from Sweden, where she had been sent to recover at the end of the war. This unforgettable book, illustrated with the author's own archival photographs, is the remarkable account of her life during those years.

FROM THE CRITICS

Chicago Tribune

A compelling read, delicate yet powerful.

New York Times Book Review

Anita Lobel's disturbing memoir is neither sentimental nor exploitative...The memory is raw. The storytelling frames it. The message is that there is no meaning in this suffering.

Publishers Weekly

Few admirers of Lobel's sunny picture book art (On Market Street) would guess at the terrors of Lobel's own childhood. Here, in beautifully measured prose, she offers a memoir that begins in 1939, when the author was five, as German soldiers march into her native Krakow; Lobel's adored father, the owner of a chocolate factory and a religious Jew, flees soon after, in the middle of the night ("He had kissed me in the night, and I did not know it"). Deportations begin, and before long the author and her younger brother (who is dressed as a girl) are sent to the country, in the care of their Niania (nanny). Thus the two children embark on years of flight, on a turbulent course involving assumed identities, blackmailers, a dangerous stay in the Krakow ghetto, concealment in a convent, capture and concentration camps. In 1945 the children are liberated, in Ravensbruck, and brought to Sweden to recuperate from what turns out to be tuberculosis, and they are eventually reunited with both parents. Lobel brings to these dramatic experiences an artist's sensibility for the telling detail, a seemingly unvarnished memory and heartstopping candor. Focused on survival, the child narrator does not pity herself or express her terror: she observes everyone keenly and cannily sizes them up. This piercing and graceful account is rewarding for readers of all ages. It may prove especially valuable for children who have graduated from Lobel's picture books and who may therefore feel they "know" her; this memoir would help such readers build a personal connection to WWII and its tragic lessons. A 12-page inset of family photos is included. Ages 10-up. (Sept.)

Children's Literature - Susie Wilde

decades of fanciful Lobel illustrations that I have admired and how she's spent a good part of her life pleasing fans with her pretty pictures. The raw power of her writing will please admirers in a different way. Her story is a tribute to her courage in the past and in the present.

Children's Literature - Judy Silverman