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Betsy Lewin

Born

in Clearfield, Pennsylvania, The United States

May 12, 1937

Website

https://www.betsylewin.com/

Genre

Children's, Illustrator

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Betsy Lewin grew up in Clearfield, Pennsylvania. She always loved to draw and can’t remember wanting to be anything but an artist. Her mother, a kindergarten teacher, is responsible for her love of children’s books. She read to Betsy and her brother every night: Winnie the Pooh, The Adventures of Babar, Uncle Remus, and all the fairy tale books. The illustrators A.B. Frost and Ernest Shepard were among her earliest heroes. Later on when she started illustrating for children, Betsy realized how strongly she’d been influenced by James Stevenson and Quentin Blake.

After graduating from Pratt Institute where she studied illustration, Betsy designed greeting cards. Then she began to write and illustrate stories for children’s magazines. When an e Betsy Lewin grew up in Clearfield, Pennsylvania. She always loved to draw and can’t remember wanting to be anything but an artist. Her mother, a kindergarten teacher, is responsible for her love of children’s books. She read to Betsy and her brother every night: Winnie the Pooh, The Adventures of Babar, Uncle Remus, and all the fairy tale books. The illustrators A.B. Frost and Ernest Shepard were among her earliest heroes. Later on when she started illustrating for children, Betsy realized how strongly she’d been influenced by James Stevenson and Quentin Blake.

After graduating from Pratt Institute where she studied illustration, Betsy designed greeting cards. Then she began to write and illustrate stories for children’s magazines. When an editor at Dodd, Mead & Company asked her to expand one of those stories into a picture book, Betsy says, “I jumped at the chance. I’ve been doing picture books ever since and loving every moment.”

Betsy’s art is usually humorous, drawn in pen or brush with watercolor washes, as in Click, Clack, Moo; Cows That Type, but she also paints in a naturalistic style as in Pool. Gorilla Walk is her first collaboration with her husband Ted and is about their trek to see the mountain gorillas in Uganda. This was followed by five more collaborations; Elephant Quest, set in the Okavango Delta, Top To Bottom Down Under, about their adventures in Australia, Horse Song; A Story of the Naadam, set in Mongolia, Balarama; A Royal Elephant, set in India, and Patrol, about the puffins of Iceland.

Many of Betsy’s books have appeared on the New York Times Best Seller List and she has garnered many awards including a silver medal from the Society of Illustrators, and a Caldecott Honor for Click, Clack, Moo; Cows That Type by Doreen Cronin.

When not at work on their books, Ted and Betsy love to travel to exotic places around the world gathering material for new books. At home each of them has a studio in their brownstone house in Brooklyn. Besides the usual clutter of pencils and pens, paint tubes and brushes, drawing paper and, of course, books, they surround themselves with mementos of their travels: peacock feathers from India, Herero dolls from Botswana, Galimoto toys from Namibia and Brazil, digeridoos from Australia, postcards and snapshots, and countless stones and seashells and bits of cloth that transport them back to the lands they visited. Their cat, Sophie, can usually be found napping on their drawing table.

Betsy was awarded a silver medal from the Society of Illustrators Original Art show for Click, Clack, Moo; Cows That Type, and an Honor for the first ever Ted Geisel Award given by the ALA for the book she illustrated, Cowgirl Kate and Cocoa.

In 2015, Ted and Betsy Lewin were inducted into the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame. ...more

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Betsy Lewin’s books

Average rating: 4.19 · 157,820 ratings · 7,618 reviews · 119 distinct works • Similar authors

	Where Is Tippy Toes? 3.93 avg rating — 360 ratings — published 2010 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Thumpy Feet 3.48 avg rating — 293 ratings — published 2013 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Good Night, Knight 3.23 avg rating — 146 ratings — published 2015 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	You Can Do It! 3.30 avg rating — 139 ratings — published 2013 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Groundhog Day (Hello Reader! Level 1) 3.39 avg rating — 122 ratings — published 1948 — 6 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Cat Count 3.59 avg rating — 98 ratings — published 1981 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Animal Snackers 3.68 avg rating — 80 ratings — published 1980 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	What's the Matter, Habibi? 3.49 avg rating — 49 ratings — published 1997 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Booby Hatch 3.77 avg rating — 26 ratings — published 1995 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Chubbo's Pool 3.73 avg rating — 22 ratings — published 1996 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Children's Books: February 2017: Caldecott Honors, 1998 - 2002	93	50	Oct 23, 2023 06:21PM
Children's Books: January 2023: Australia	58	21	Dec 19, 2025 07:45PM

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Betsy Lewin’s Followers (38)

Betsy Lewin

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