Karla Kuskin was a children's book author and illustrator who had a celebrated read-aloud writing style that reflected a rare understanding of a child's perspective. She died one year ago at age 77.

Kuskin first achieved fame with "Roar and More," a 1956 book about animals and the noises they make that was her senior project at Yale.

She could "think herself into a child's skin" by using memories of her childhood as inspiration, Margaret F. Maxwell wrote in the "St. James Guide to Children's Writers" (1999). "That she has been able to distill these memories into simple yet lighthearted verses . . . is Kuskin's lasting talent."

Her flowing, simple and readable style is reflected in an early work, "James and the Rain" (1957), which Publishers Weekly called "one of the best read-aloud stories" for children:

James pressed his nose against the pane
and saw a million drops of rain.
The earth was wet,
the sky was gray,
it looked like it would rain all day.

For more, read Karla Kuskin's obituary in The Times.

-- Michael Farr

Photo: Karla Kuskin. 

Dina Gottliebova Babbitt never got her pictures back.

Babbitt, a Holocaust survivor who died one year ago, fought for more than 30 years to retrieve portraits that she was forced to paint of fellow prisoners while she was imprisoned at Auschwitz concentration camp. She credited the paintings, which are kept at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum, for saving her life.

A young art student when she was deported to Auschwitz, Babbitt drew a "Snow White" scene on a wall of a children's barracks to help soothe the youngsters. Josef Mengele, the infamous Nazi doctor who performed hideous experiments on prisoners, heard of her talents and ordered her to paint portraits as mementos for his racist theories.

Babbitt said she told Mengele she would rather die if her mother was not also let out of a group of Jews scheduled to be gassed. Her mother was allowed to live. Her father and her fiance died elsewhere in the Holocaust.

After World War II, Babbitt went to Paris and became an assistant to American cartoonist Art Babbitt, one of Disney's "Snow White" animators. They married and moved to Hollywood and later divorced. She worked in animation at various Hollywood studios.

Then, out of the blue in 1973, the Auschwitz museum notified her that it had the paintings.

Despite her long campaign to reclaim the paintings, the museum has insisted that artifacts proving Holocaust history should be in their original setting.

For more, read Dina Gottliebova Babbitt's obituary by The Times.

-- Michael Farr

Photo: Dina Gottliebova Babbitt. Credit: Robert Durell / Los Angeles Times

Pioneering fantasy artist Frank Frazetta died Monday morning at a hospital in Fort Myers, Fla., his manager said. He was 82.

Manager Rob Pistella said Frazetta died Monday, a day after suffering a stroke. He said Frazetta had been out to dinner with his daughters Sunday before falling ill.

Frazetta is renowned for his sci-fi and fantasy art. He created covers and illustrations for more than 150 books and comic books, including Conan the Barbarian and Tarzan.

Daughter Heidi Frazetta Grabin said she was hopeful that a dispute among siblings over their father's artwork had been resolved through recent negotiations.

Son Frank Frazetta was charged in December with using a backhoe to break into the artist's museum in the Poconos and trying to remove dozens of paintings.

More later at www.latimes.com/obits.

-- Associated Press

Photo: Frank Frazetta with one of his paintings in 1994. Credit: David W. Coulter / Pocono Record/Associated Press

David Levine, an artist and caricaturist whose work illustrated the New York Review of Books for more than 40 years, died today. He was 83.

New York Review editor Robert Silvers confirmed Levine's death. Levine died at New York Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan of prostate cancer and complications from other ailments.

His drawings of politicians, celebrities, writers and historical figures typically had large heads and exaggerated features. See a gallery of Levine's caricatures here.

In one well-known image from 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson pulls up his shirt to reveal the scar from his gallbladder operation, shaped like the map of Vietnam.

In addition to the New York Review of Books starting in 1963, Levine’s work appeared in Esquire, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Rolling Stone, the New Yorker and other publications.

[Updated at 1:05 p.m.: Levine’s drawings -- Albert Einstein with a nimbus of hair; Richard Nixon, all 5 o’clock shadow and ski-slope nose -- defined the look of the New York Review, which sold them on calendars and T-shirts. From a few months after it began publishing in 1963 until Levine was diagnosed with the eye disease macular degeneration in 2006, the artist contributed more than 3,800 drawings to the Review, which has continued to illustrate its articles with old Levine drawings.

Silvers, who called Levine "the greatest caricaturist of his time," said the artist would read the article he was illustrating with great attention, and then "a drawing would emerge."

"He brought to the caricature a brilliance and a depth and an insight into character that was unmatched," Silvers said.

Levine also exhibited paintings, many depicting New York scenes such as Coney Island.

His work is in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Library of Congress and England’s National Portrait Gallery, among other institutions.

John Updike, who was drawn several times by Levine, once called the artist "one of America’s assets. In a confusing time, he bears witness. In a shoddy time, he does good work."

Levine was born in Brooklyn in 1926 and studied at schools including the Brooklyn Museum of Art School, the Pratt Institute and Temple University’s Tyler School of Art.

He is survived by his wife, Kathy Hayes; son Matthew, of Westport, Conn.; daughter Eve, of Manhattan; stepdaughter Nancy Rommelmann, of Portland, Ore.; stepson Christopher Rommelmann, of Brooklyn; and two grandchildren.]

-- Associated Press

Photo: An illustration of caricaturist David Levine. Credit: Roman Genn / For The Times