Ruth Chew

All the newly printed Ruth Chew books are available as ebooks, and there are, so far, two three-book omnibus collections available, too. See a complete listing of the new books and e-books.

But what are the ebooks really like?

Many of us nostalgic book-readers are suspicious of these new-fangled e-readers, so we don’t really know much about them. Paper books are awesome enough, are they not?

But did you know that you can read Amazon’s Kindle books on a free ap without buying a Kindle? They’ll even let you download samples of Ruth Chew’s books while considering an e-book purchase. I know, because that’s what I finally did!

Below are screenshots from the Kindle ap running on my desktop computer of the cover and some of the interior pages of the Kindle ebook of The Witch’s Buttons, showing how well the illustrations reproduce and how you can change the font size. Enjoy!

Here I’m posting photos of the new September 2014 reissues The Witch at the Window and The Would-Be Witch, two great witch books for Halloween!

Paperbacks (ISBNS 9780449815663 and 9780449815700):

Hardcovers:

The Witch at the Window (ISBN 9780449815632):

The Would-Be Witch (ISBN 9780449815670):

The cover art for the two books to be released in September is here!

Two years ago I bought this book for a dollar at a library fundraiser, but I’m only just now adding it officially to the collection. It’s the oldest copy of Shark Lady in the collection and has the nicest cover, so I’ve not only updated the database to include this new old book, I’ve updated the Shark Lady page and the book covers page so that this is the book cover scan that’s featured, rather than the scan where a price sticker blocks the “y” in lady, making it seem as though the book is about “Shark Lad”!

Here is some data I’ve collected on the reading level of Ruth Chew’s books. The data comes from what is printed on some of the copies in the collection and from old reviews published in industry journals.

It seems the books are generally considered to be suitable for second graders (seven-year-olds) and up, though of course every child is different.

Mail is fun. International mail is even more fun. I just received the Spanish-language translations of three Ruth Chew books that I bought online, all from the same seller. They’re in good shape, so I’m pleased with the 25 Euros I spent to get them.

I read a bit of El problema de la magic and noticed that the room fragrance spray that the sister and brother buy is called “espray”. Spanish borrowed the English word “spray”, but Spanish-speakers are unable to pronounce the consonant cluster “sp” at the front of the word, so the borrowed word became “espray”!

Did you know that book publishers operate on a two-season year? Publishers organize their product line into two batches, a fall/winter batch and a spring/summer batch. At least, that was my experience working for Princeton University Press, and Random House seems to be doing the same.

The books are written, contracted, prepared, and manufactured all year, of course, but the sales and marketing people focus on a discrete number of new books grouped together by season.

Traditionally, it seems there were three publishing seasons (spring, fall and winter). Times are changing, though, and some now argue that having seasons at all doesn’t make any sense.

I don’t know what they will look like yet, but next season’s Ruth Chew titles will be The Witch at the Window, The Would-Be Witch, and Three Shrinking Tales (Do-It-Yourself Magic, Earthstar Magic, and Mostly Magic).

These titles are being released August 26, 2014.

Paperbacks:

Hardcovers:

Hardcover edition of Magic in the Park:

Hardcover edition of The Trouble with Magic:

Library editions:

The book profiles for the following Ruth Chew novels now have summaries as well as listings for characters, places and themes. Enjoy!

The Trouble with Magic 

Witch’s Cat

The Witch’s Garden

The Magic Coin