As seasonal picks line the shelves of children’s books aisles, young readers reach for the beloved classics of one Corcoran School of the Arts & Design alum time and time again.

Ruth Chew, who attended Corcoran in the 1930s, authored the well-known book series, “A Matter-Of-Fact Magic” about children discovering enchanted objects, like wizards and flying vacuums, in their everyday lives. Chew contributed to the canon of children’s Halloween books, finding magic in the mundane.

In 1969, Chew’s first book “The Wednesday Witch,” was published by Scholastic Book Services, inspired by her daughter’s pleading for witch stories. Chew went on to write 28 other books in the series, and Penguin Random House began reprinting two books from the series each year in 2013. 

Eve Sprunt, Chew’s daughter, said her mother passed away in May 2010, after moving to the California Bay Area in 2001 from Brooklyn, New York to be closer to her children.

Sprunt said her mother’s belief in magic was her greatest strength as an author and illustrator, contributing to her imagination and creativity as she put pen to paper to illustrate and write her books. Sprunt said Chew’s imagination was childlike, and her mother often thought of herself as an 11-year-old trapped in an adult’s body.

“She dreamed up the sort of things that kids that age want to do,” Sprunt said. 

She said her mother’s considerable imagination went hand-in-hand with a tenacity that allowed her to publish her self-written and illustrated children’s books with Scholastic Books after years of professional setbacks due to sexism. Sprunt said Chew would not have become the artist readers know today without the four years she spent training at the Corcoran School of Art, now the Corcoran School of the Arts & Design after GW acquired the institution in 2014.

“Her experience at George Washington really shaped and developed her as an artist,” Sprunt said.

Sprunt said getting to Corcoran was no easy task for Chew. She said despite advancing quickly through her courses and graduating high school at age 16, Chew’s father was unwilling to send her and her older sister to college, instead preferring to send them to secretarial school.

Undeterred, Sprunt said Chew pivoted to Corcoran — an arts school in the District with a lower yearly fee of $40, which is about $775 today when adjusted for inflation. After convincing her father to front the tuition, she said her mother set about her studies with enthusiasm.

“She absolutely loved it there,” Sprunt said. 

An excerpt of Chew’s diary, shared by Sprunt, detailed her time at Corcoran being locked in a building after-hours with a friend. 

“After the lecture, we went down into the basement and into the gallery,” the excerpt said. “All was dark, except for a light or two at crucial points on the stairways. Our very muddy galoshes muffled our footsteps. We crept into the salon, and after some hesitation, stepped over the rope and into the room, lit dimly from the streetlamps outside and the huge windows. We clutched each other and drifted through the room to the fireplace, our figures ghostly, silhouetted in the immense mirrors we passed. Then we sat gingerly on one of the settees. It didn’t break!”

Sprunt said several Corcoran professors were influential in Chew’s development as an artist, including Kenneth Stubbs, a prominent American Cubist painter, and American artist Eugen Weisz. It was her work with these professors, Sprunt said, that sharpened Chew’s technique and gave her the confidence she needed to begin working as a professional illustrator. 

After graduation, Sprunt said Chew had a brief stint in Baltimore, Maryland drawing newspaper advertisements for brands but that she returned to Corcoran for night school as a source of inspiration and camaraderie in her career. But Sprunt said the main inspiration for “The Wednesday Witch” was from Chew’s youngest daughter always begging her to tell witch stories in the car. 

“As soon as she could move back to Washington, the first thing she did was reenroll in night school at Corcoran,” Sprunt said. 

Chew’s legacy of her writing lives on through her daughter Sprunt, who published a book about her mother’s career titled “Passionate Persistence” last year. Sprunt said she is working on another memoir collating her mother’s diary entries and is also in talks with a movie producer who is interested in creating a cinematic rendition of “The Wednesday Witch.”

“I think I inherited her passion to write,” Sprunt said.

Melissa LaSalle, the children’s books buyer at Old Town Books in Alexandria, said Chew’s books made her enjoy the thrill of the possibility of magic as a child.

“Ruth Chew’s books are the first books that I can remember being able to read by myself from beginning to end,” LaSalle said. “So they are very tied to launching me as a reader, and I loved them.”

She said she typically recommends Chew’s books to emerging readers looking for their first chapter book. Because Chew’s books can stand alone and are without a specific order, LaSalle said, they are more easily accessible for younger readers who have shorter attention spans and less stamina for longer books.

“I will take them off the shelf and show them to a reader or show them to a parent who’s looking for a short chapter read aloud for their prereader,” LaSalle said. 

While Chew’s books are on the older side compared to the children’s books on the shelves at Old Town Books and other stores today, LaSalle said she appreciates the timelessness of “The Wednesday Witch” and its companions.

“I think her tone and the way that she writes still feels very relevant to me. It’s very funny,” LaSalle said. 

Despite children’s literature’s shift toward appealing to a new generation of readers competing for attention with technology, LaSalle said the themes of Chew’s books are still applicable to children today. 

“The universal themes of wanting to look for magic, to break up the ordinary is still something that I think is part of many children’s imaginative worlds,” LaSalle said. 

Since the re-publishing of Chew’s series, which began in 2013, nostalgic readers have chimed in online, taking to Reddit to share memories and favorite stories from Chew’s series. 

“Oh my gosh, I LOVED these books as a kid! My favorite was “Earthstar Magic!” Man I need to find them and re-read them…thanks for the reminder!!” a Reddit comment from the WitchesvsPatriarchy channel said. 

One commenter in particular recalled writing a letter to Chew as a child and being surprised to hear back from the author herself. 

“She even drew a picture of a witch on it. I have no idea what happened to the letter, but I’ll always remember her kindness and how much I loved these books.” a Reddit comment from the WitchesvsPatriarchy channel said.