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)

Documents the story of 1940s comic-book artist Lily Renee Wilhelm, tracing her harrowing experiences as an Austrian Jewish refugee who fled from the Nazis and then hostile authorities in England before escaping to the United States, where she developed as an artist and created such series as The Lost World and Werewolf Hunters. Simultaneous.