Book Description
for Lily Renee, Escape Artist by Trina Robbins, Anne Timmons, and Mo Oh
From Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC)
Lily Renée Wilheim is a Jewish teen living in Vienna in the late 1930s. As the Nazis take control of her country, her parents are able to get Lily Renée onto one of the last Kindertransports to England. She is placed with her English pen pal’s family, but relief is short-lived: Her pen pal’s mother is cruel and uncaring, expecting Lily Renée to act like a servant and depriving her of food. Lily Renée runs away, finding work as a nurse’s aide in England before emigrating to the United States after the war. There, her interest in and talent for drawing eventually land her a job as a comic book artist. This swiftly moving graphic novel about the early life and start of a female pioneer’s career in the comics field will have many teens clamoring to know more about this groundbreaking artist. The end matter comprises short vignettes providing additional historical context for some elements of the narrative (including “The Fighting Femmes of Wartime Comic Books”) and photographs of Lily Renée. (Age 12 and older)
CCBC Choices 2012. © Cooperative Children's Book Center, Univ. of Wisconsin - Madison, 2012. Used with permission.