No Pretty Pictures

Lobel is the author and narrator of the book. She usually doesn’t write long-form prose books. Her main occupation is illustrating and writing shorter children’s books. With a bit of irony, the title references her real-life job. Typically, she makes pretty pictures, but this story is not a pretty picture.

Lobel’s experience with drawing connects to a prominent literary device in the book: imagery. Instead of using simple terms to express what she sees, Lobel uses vivid language to depict the life-or-death atmosphere. Lobel doesn’t use words like “the Holocaust,” “antisemitism,” or “trauma,” and in general, she seems wary of labels and categorizations. She rejects the victim label, and she doesn’t seem to want the reader’s sympathy. Lobel says, “Mine is only another story” (190). She depicts what she saw and how she felt but distinguishes that this is her life, and she’s not speaking for anyone else or trying to create something that another person or group can exploit or use for an ulterior purpose.

Without overly complicating the figure of Lobel, it seems like she’s two people: She’s the adult Lobel in the Prologue and Epilogue, and she’s the child Anita in the two main sections.