This weeks LiveMakeDesign features famous writer and illustrator Judith Kerr. For this weeks feature it will be slightly shorter and of a different format.

I had heard of  Judith Kerr before but last night I seen a tweet on my twitter timeline saying to flick over to BBC One for a piece about an illustrator. Since I wasn't really watching anything anyway I was just like 'what the heck' and switched over.

The programme- Imagine- Winter 2013, is basically a documentary about the life, art work and writing of Kerr. It speaks a lot about her family and about how she had to escape from Berlin- just before the Nazi's rose to power. 

For the next three years after leaving Berlin in 1993, they travelled to Switzerland to France to finally settling in England. Ever since Kerr has lived in England. This adventure -what she likes to call it- inspired one of her novels, When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit. It is named after her pink rabbit toy that she had to leave behind when they left Berlin. The book has since been a piece of reading that is taught in German school.s

When the Second World War started, Kerr ended up helping with the Red Cross. While working during this time she would help wounded soldiers. In 1945 she was granted a scholarship to the Central School of Arts and Crafts. Since then she has worked for BBC television, as a scriptwriter and an artist. However, for the past 30 years she has been working as an illustrator and writer. She has published many books during this time.

She was also married to Tom(Nigel) Kneal scripwriter from 1954, up until he passed away in 2006. Together they had two children- both of which are writers as well. 

Her most popular books include The Tiger That Came To Tea, When Hitler Came To Tea and her 17-strong Mog series. Her writing has became more and more important to her in the years since her husband has past away and will spend the majority of her time writing and illustrating in her home.

This is just some of the information I picked up on from the documentary and from pieces from around the interweb. However, if you are able to watch BBC iplayer then please try and make the effort to watch it. I'm not sure when the documentary will be uploaded to the iplayer but I will update this with the link when I can.