Early Life
Ted Lewin was born in Buffalo, New York on May 6, 1935. He has a sister and two brothers, both of them professional wrestlers. The Lewin household had a number of exotic pets, such as an iguana, a rhesus monkey, a chimpanzee, and a lion. Lewin grew up with the hobby of sketching his family pets. He also copied works of many illustrators and painters that interested him. While attending Lafayette High School (LHS), mentored by the respected art instructor Elizabeth Weiffenbach, Lewin refined his talent for art. He graduated from LHS in 1952, and in 1956 earned a BFA degree from Pratt Institute of Art in Brooklyn, where he met his wife, Betsy Reilly. He and his wife now reside in Brooklyn, New York.
In order to finance his education at Pratt, Lewin took on a part-time career as a teenage professional wrestler. His wrestling career lasted for 15 years, and it inspired him to record his experience by writing I Was a Teenaged Professional Wrestler.
In 1994, Lewin's book Peppe the Lamplighter received a Caldecott Honor.
In 2006, One Green Apple, illustrated by Lewin and written by Eve Bunting, won the inaugural Arab American Book Award for books written for Children/Young Adults. One Green Apple tells the story of a young girl who has just immigrated to America from an Arab country and her discovery that her differences are what makes her special.
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