Lisl Weil (–2006)

Lisl Weil was born in Vienna, Austria where she began to draw at a very young age. By the time she was sixteen, Weil's drawings were being published regularly in a Viennese newspaper. At the same time, she was attending art school. She also performed for a time with a dance group. After spending a year in Holland, she moved to New York in 1939. She soon met her future husband, Julius Marx, who guided her towards children's literature. From the 1950s through the 1990s, she estimated that she illustrated more than a hundred children's books--over half of them for stories that she wrote herself.

In addition to illustrating books, Weil also performed with several major symphony orchestras. As the orchestra played, she drew the story