Holocaust survivor and children’s book author and illustrator Anita Lobel is speaking at the University of Tennessee at Martin and at a festival downtown this month. Lobel is UT Martin’s 2017 Paul Meek Literary Legacy Speaker. Her work has appeared on the The New York Times Best Illustrated List and she is a Caldecott Honor Medal recipient.
According to a release, Lobel was born in Poland and her early life was shaped by World War II and time in a concentration camp. She avoided Nazi capture until 1944, where she and her brother were sent to concentration camps. They were rescued by the Swedish Red Cross and reunited with their parents two years later. Her family moved to New York and she began a lifetime career in art and literature. Her personal memoir, “No Pretty Pictures: A Child of War,” was a finalist for the National Book Award. Lobel will speak at UTM on April 20th in the Paul Meek Library and as part of the Northwest Tennessee Children’s Book Festival in Martin on April 22.