Earthstar Magic

Matter-of-Fact Magic

by Ruth Chew

Ellen and Ben meet a friendly witch who reveals the magic power of the earthstar to them.

Now that he was on the earthstar, Ben was so excited he forgot everything else. "Show me how to fly it, Trudy."

Trudy took hold of the tip of one point. She pulled it toward her. At once the earthstar flew up into the air. When Trudy moved the point to the right, the earthstar turned right. She pushed it the other way. The star turned left. They were flying!

Genres: Fantasy, Chapter Books, Kids, Witches, Childrens, Young Adult

128 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 1979

About the author

Ruth Chew is the author of a number of popular books for young readers, including Secondhand Magic and The Wednesday Witch. She was born in Minneapolis and grew up in Washington, D.C. She studied art at the Corcoran School of Art and worked as a fashion artist. She was the mother of five children.

Reviews

[Ayla · Rating 4 out of 5]

Earth stars are very cool looking fungi, I’ve found them growing near a beach in Massachusetts. They are like little barometers, opening and closing in relationship to moisture.

This one in particular is magic and a bit dangerous. Very good story!

[Capn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reminded me quite a lot of Well Met By Witchlight, which I preferred - available to read for free on Open Library, so please do check it out. ;)

Earthstar Magic does seem to be written for a slightly younger audience (early chapter book readers), while I'd feel more comfortable labelling Well Met By Witchlight as Middle Grade.

I'm sure there are enough reviews of Earthstar Magic anyway, so I'm just going to directly compare and contrast these two books. Earthstar Magic is set somewhere in New England, I presume? Ellen and Ben Sanders and their parents have come to a cottage on a lake for the summer holidays from Brooklyn, and we find out that Gertrude (Trudy) is also from Brooklyn. Well Met By Witchlight is set in the United Kingdom (I don't think it specifies where, exactly), and Guy Fawkes Night and Halloween both feature.

Witches-wise, there's quite a lot of similarity between Trudy and Mary: both are old crones with grey hair and unfashionable clothes, but both are also very young-hearted, almost juvenile, and vulnerable. Both books have that intergenerational-friendship theme, though in Earthstar Magic we have Ben constantly questioning Trudy's motives and capacity for evil - Ben really has a strong anti-witch prejudice which he is unwilling to confront. I don't recall the children being as mistrustful in Well Met By Witchlight.

Both have the children (or at least one of the children) going along for a ride on a broomstick, though in Earthstar Magicthe children have been temporarily changed into cats for the ride. Both have the children helping the vulnerable witch regain powers or status, and then the witch returns to her solitary existence, though I felt Well Met By Witchlight had such beautiful depth on this front, and the children were more directly involved in Mary's restoration. There's so much more going on in that book, whereas Earthstar Magic is very cut-and-dry: again, it reads as though for a younger, simpler audience.

But in terms of entertaining magic, Earthstar Magic might have Well Met By Witchlight pipped: there's what's on the cover (can't be a spoiler then, right?) - flying fungus, and being shrunk to size in order to do so, and also feasting on giant raspberries while tiny; the children are also briefly transformed into cats in order to ride on Trudy's broomstick, and they attend a coven meeting on a full moon. So Ellen and Ben enter Trudy's world, more than say the three siblings in Well Met By Witchlight, who have Mary entering into their world and working her magic there. As a result, some of the content of Well Met By Witchlight seems much more dated than in Earthstar Magic - both books are set in the 1970s, but apart from this scene, Earthstar Magic is more timeless:

"Why don't you both run along right now?" Mr. Sanders said. "I don't much care for rummage sales. Ben and I can wash the dishes and burn the trash while you're gone."

Because, astoundingly, burning your trash was considered to be the environmentally responsible choice?! (I love old books - everyone should read outside of their own decades occasionally. You never know what you'll find. Watermelon pickles are also not something I knew existed, though that might be because I'm not from the U.S.?).

Anyway, if you loved Earthstar Magic and haven't read Well Met By Witchlight, then I have a hot tip for a free book for you (OpenLibrary). I own the paperback and have no regrets on that front - there are still cheap copies available secondhand online. ;) Whereas Earthstar Magic... I think I waited over two and a half months for this to be shipped trans-Atlantic, and it wasn't especially cheap even without the international shipping costs.

I can see why Ruth Chew is so popular: for this reading level, she's managed to put together a fun and imaginative story. There are many of her titles available to borrow from OpenLibrary, which is great considering the scarcity (and therefore the price!) of her books, not to mention shipping costs! ;) Sadly, at time of writing, Earthstar Magic has not been scanned. But Well Met By Witchlight sure has, and Nina Beachcroft is currently one of my favourite authors - if you don't know her, you need to!

I'll be keeping my copy of Earthstar Magic. Must be a lot of fun for a beginning reader to have on their own (it was also interesting as a read-aloud for a much younger audience, too. Chew's own black and white drawings throughout were very sweet and well-enjoyed).

[Mir · Rating 5 out of 5]

I still loved this story after re-reading it. It’s the raspberry scene that stood out the most from when I was a child. To imagine seeing tadpoles and eating raspberries as a person the size of a cricket! I also loved the mini bedroom constructed by Ben, with the zip-tie chair and the matchbox bed. It makes me want to recreate this blown up.

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite of Ruth Chew's!

[Cynthia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating to read an author I remember so well from the Scholastic Book Fairs. It was like a trip into the past

[Kennedy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book when I was a young teen and it was the one that made me fall in love with reading. It holds a special place in my heart.

[Ginna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Found this @a thrift store Friday. I loved Ruth Chew growing up. Interesting to look @ her now. Though I enjoy the stories, the formula is pretty much the same in most of her books. As an earlier commenter noted- "unsupervised 11-year-olds + magic = fun"
I think the intended audience must be about 7 or 8 though - very simple sentence construction.

I would add that Earthstar Magic has some more mature thematic elements than Mostly Magic - ideas about growing up & being able to take care of yourself, bullying, and taking responsibility for others - that make it a more satisfying read. Interesting that it was published three years prior to MM.

[HeavyReader · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most of the Ruth Chew books I've read just kind of blur together in my head. I know I've read them, but I can't really remember the plot. This book I remember more vividly, becasue I remember the witch and the kids flying around on the earthstar, which is some kind of plant or plant part. It was like some sort of plant based magic carpet. Cool!

[Angie Lisle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ruth Chew was one of my favorite authors as a kid - I still enjoy the magic woven in her stories!

[Danielle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Found my copy of this book in my mother's basement. I remember it being oner of those books that I read over and over again. Both my kids have now read it, and they are both enjoying it. Magic, yay!