How many Judy Blume books have you (or your children and maybe even grandchildren) read? Judy Blume was a popular author at our house and we still have signed -with love- copies of Freckle Juice and Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, plus photos of our children meeting her. But her writing was controversial, too; Blume was “the country’s most-banned author in the mid-1980s.” And, unbelievably, one of her books was just banned statewide in Utah (more from The Guardian). In a newly published book called THE GENIUS OF JUDY Rachelle Bergstein explores “How Judy Blume Rewrote Childhood for All of Us.” The tone is slightly academic, but the stories about how Blume started writing and the impact she is still having are fascinating. Bergstein includes a timeline and offers over two dozen short chapters on topics important to Blume and her readers (e.g., pre-teen girls, rebellion, divorce, censorship). My favorites were the last two which deal with Libraries and Legacy. I am proud to recommend Judy Blume’s books and am so grateful for the impact she had on our family and many others. THE GENIUS OF JUDY is a LibraryReads selection for July.
Interested readers may also want to watch the documentary, titled Judy Blume Forever, currently streaming on Amazon Prime:
Indeed, her stories are OUR stories.
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