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Anita Lobel is a Polish-American illustrator of children's books, including A New Coat for Anna, This Quiet Lady, Alison's Zinnia, and On Market Street, which won a Caldecott Honor for illustrations. One Lighthouse, One Moon, one of three books she created about her cat, Nini, is a New York Times Best Illustrated Book. Her childhood memoir, No Pretty Pictures, was a finalist for the National Book Award.
She was born in Krakow, Poland, to a merchant family. When she was five years old, World War II began and she, her brother and their nanny, whom they called Niania, were forced into hiding for the next four and a half years, first in the countryside, then in a ghetto, and finally in a convent, where the Nazis caught them. She and her brother were then sent to a concentration camp in Germany. They were rescued in 1945 by the Swedish Red Cross and reunited with their parents in 1947. Though she could read and write, Lobel didn't begin school until age 13. In 1952, her family moved from Sweden to New York where she graduated from high school and earned a B.F.A. in fine arts from Pratt Institute. While taking part in a school play at Pratt, she met her future husband, Arnold Lobel, who was the play's director.
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