Welcome to the Deep Dive. We're the place you
come to get the essential, maybe surprising,
definitely important nuggets from some pretty
complex source material. That's right. We sift
through it so you don't have to. And today we
are taking a really comprehensive look at someone
many of you probably grew up with. Judith, Judy
Blume. Her life, her amazing career, and well...
Her complicated legacy. Complicated is definitely
the word. I mean, if you've ever read one of
her books, and let's be honest, who hasn't? You
know the name. The numbers are just staggering.
She sold over 82 million copies globally. 82
million. And it's not just sales. Her influence.
Time magazine just last year in 2023 named her
one of the 100 most influential people in the
world. That's that's generational reach global.
Absolutely. But and this is the core paradox
our source material brings up right away. Judy
Blume is also simultaneously one of the most
frequently challenged authors. Yeah. Challenge
censored outright banned. particularly in U .S.
schools and public libraries. It's wild. It really
is. So you have this massive global influence
on one hand and this intense, often very local,
pushback on the other. So our mission today,
our deep dive, is to unpack that. We're digging
into her dedicated biographical sources to figure
out how she became this literary force, you know,
someone who basically defined adolescence for
so many people starting way back in 1969 right
through to 2020. And specifically why the kinds
of realistic topics she tackled, the stuff nobody
else was touching, led directly to these decades,
literally decades of censorship battles. Okay,
let's unpack this then. Right. How does someone
rack up that kind of acclaim, sell tens of millions
of books, become a Time 100 influencer? Right.
And still be a constant target for censorship.
That tension, that paradox, that's really the
heart of what we're digging into today. And I
think the answer lies squarely in the power and
maybe the perceived danger of her subject matter.
Her main area, yeah, it's often called realist
young adult novels. YA, basically. Right, YA.
But it's so important to see her versatility,
too. She wrote and continued to write these incredibly
beloved children's books. Think of the Fudge
series. Oh, yeah. Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing.
Classic. Exactly. Hugely popular. And she also
wrote for adults later on and successfully to
multiple New York Times bestsellers. OK. But
her real like indelible mark that was definitely
made in children's and young adult literature.
She just she transformed the whole landscape,
changed the conversation about what was OK or
even possible to talk about with young readers.
So to really get a handle on this revolution
she started, we need to go back, back to the
beginning. Sure. Her foundations. Makes sense.
So she was born Judith Sussman, Elizabeth, New
Jersey, 1938. Grew up in a Jewish family. Education
-wise, it was kind of typical for her time and
place. Brief stint at Boston University. And
finished up at NYU New York University. Graduated
61. Bachelor's degree in education. And the timing
here, the early 60s context, it's really crucial.
She married her first husband, John M. Bloom.
He was a lawyer back in 1959. Then her daughter,
Randy Lee, was born in 61. And following that,
Judy basically stepped into the expected role
of a suburban homemaker. Right. So Lawrence came
along a couple of years later. Yep, exactly.
So by the mid -60s, picture it. She's in that
domestic sphere raising two young kids. And this
is where it gets interesting for her writing
career, right? The aha. Totally. She apparently
always had this habit, kind of an internal thing,
of making up stories in her head. Like just daydreaming?
Sort of, yeah. But she hadn't really pursued
writing like as a thing. It was specifically
during those hours when her kids were off at
preschool or nursery school. Exactly. She felt
this maybe creative vacuum and need to do something
for herself. So she started writing stories down.
And she actually said it was partly just to entertain
herself to fill that time. Wow. So it wasn't
some grand plan initially. Doesn't sound like
it. More like a personal need. But she did build
on those education courses she took at NYU. It
was a conscious effort turning what could have
been, you know, isolating time, the 60s suburban
housewife stereotype into this period of like
intense creativity. That's amazing. Turning that
circumstance into fuel. Yeah. And that drive,
that need to express things. It was also shaped
by some pretty heavy stuff in her childhood.
Our sources mentioned several hardships that
clearly left a mark, often in ways that didn't.
really come out until much much later like what
well for instance when she was in third grade
her older brother david got really sick a kidney
infection he needed a two -year recovery period
two years yeah and it meant this complicated
family situation Judy, her brother and her mom
had to temporarily move down to Miami Beach for
his recovery. While her dad stayed back home.
Right. Stayed in Jersey to keep his dental practice
running. So you've got separation, illness, being
displaced. That kind of experience definitely
teaches you something about childhood anxiety,
you know. Absolutely. Yeah. But you said some
things didn't surface until later. Yeah. The
really stunning example, the one that draws this
incredibly direct line between this like. Buried
childhood trauma and her later adult fiction
is the Elizabeth plane crashes. Oh, I read about
this. This was in her hometown. Yes. Elizabeth,
New Jersey. Between 1951 and 52, three separate
planes crashed there. In rapid succession. Three.
That's terrifying. Absolutely terrifying. Major
disasters. 121 people died in total. The whole
community was just gripped by fear. And she lived
through that as a kid. As a young teenager, yeah.
And what's just fascinating, almost unbelievable,
is how these memories, which she said she literally
buried, became the absolute core plot for her
2015 adult novel, In the Unlikely Event. decades
later. And her father was involved somehow. Her
father, Rudolph Sussman, he was a dentist, and
he was one of the people called upon to help
identify the victim's remains, some of which
were, well, unrecognizable. Oh, my God. Imagine
carrying that. It's a kid. Knowing your dad is
doing that work, seeing your pound go through
that. Exactly. The weight of that experience.
It just adds this whole other layer, doesn't
it? The author famous for dealing with the immediate
anxieties of growing up periods, first crushes,
all that. was also holding on to this massive,
unprocessed community trauma for decades. It
really speaks to how long it can take for art
to process life. It really does. It took her,
what, nearly 60 years to write about that specific
New Jersey trauma. But the writing career itself,
that got going much faster, relatively speaking.
Right, after the kids were in school. Yeah. Though
it wasn't instant success, she apparently went
through about two years of constant rejections
from publishers. Two years. Yeah. That takes
persistence. It does. But then finally, her first
book got published in 1969, A Children's Story.
The one in the middle is The Green Kangaroo.
The Green Kangaroo. Then book number two, Iggy's
House, came out the next year, 1970. That one
was actually a rewrite of a story she'd published
earlier in a magazine called Trailblazer. So
she was already reworking things, finding her
voice. seems like it but the real i mean the
seismic shift the breakthrough moment happened
later that same year 1970 her third book let
me guess margaret bingo are you there god it's
me margaret that was it the one everyone knows
instant classic it wasn't just a popular book
it immediately established her put her right
at the forefront of this emerging thing called
young adult literature it felt necessary. Like
it was speaking direct role to kids who were
tired of the old kind of preachy books. OK, so
Margaret's success, that basically kicks off
what we can pretty accurately call the Judy Blume
YA revolution, right? Absolutely. Revolution
is the right word. She didn't just write good
YA novels. She fundamentally reshaped the entire
genre. How so? Well, she was one of the very
first major authors, especially for that age
group, to build entire novels around topics that
were, well, Controversial, realistic things that
kids and teens were definitely thinking about,
worrying about. That were totally off limits
in books. Exactly. Strictly taboo in the literary
world for young people at that time. We need
to remember what YA was like before her. in the
early 70s yeah the context is key a lot of books
for kids back then were really didactic they
were meant to teach a lesson you know instill
virtue provide this neat moral road map that
often just ignored how messy real life actually
is and bloom just threw that out pretty much
rejected it completely her openness was just
unprecedented think about the subjects she tackled
head -on masturbation menstruation actual teen
sex, birth control, serious family fights, brutal
bullying, body image stuff, even death. That's
a list. And she always said she wrote about these
things for two main reasons. One, she believed
kids needed honest information about them. And
two, because these were the exact things she
wondered about constantly when she was a kid
growing up in Jersey and there were just no books
talking about it. So it was filling a void she
felt herself. Totally. It was a shift from like,
here's your lesson fiction to I see you. This
is real fiction. Pure connection. And how did
she make that connection so strong? Was it just
the topics? The topics were huge, obviously,
but her technique was just as revolutionary.
Her mastery of the first -person narrative. Ah,
writing from the kid's point of view. Exactly.
It wasn't just what she said, it was how. By
putting the reader right inside the head, the
internal monologue of characters like Margaret
or Dini later on, she basically got rid of that
judging adult voice that usually policed YA stories.
So the worries felt real. Universal. Universal,
yeah. And maybe most importantly, normal. Not
something to be ashamed of. Okay, let's tick
off some of the key books and what they did.
Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret. 1970,
obviously the big one. Focused on puberty anxiety.
Yeah, waiting for your period, worrying about
breast development, questioning religion and
identity. All of it. Still the gold standard
for that experience. And she just kept pushing
the envelope. Oh, yeah. She released this wave
of books tackling specific things nobody talked
about. Dini in 1973. That was huge because it
talked about masturbation. Right. How does she
handle that? Clinically, but not judgmentally.
It wasn't presented as like a sin or dangerous,
just a part of life, part of self -discovery.
That might seem small now, but back then it was
like breaking down a massive cultural wall. And
she didn't shy away from the tough social stuff
either, right? Like bullying. Not at all. Blubber
1974. That was a really raw, unflinching look
at how cruel kids can be. Peer pressure, exclusion,
humiliation. Did that get pushed back, too? Oh,
yeah. Blubber got its own special kind of criticism.
Some people, especially more conservative readers,
argued it sent the wrong message because the
bullies. particularly the main one, Linda, don't
really face serious consequences in the story.
There's no neat, tidy punishment from adults.
Critics felt that showed kids they could get
away with being awful. Interesting. So they wanted
a moral hammer to come down. Exactly. They wanted
that didactic ending and Bloom just wasn't giving
it to them. She showed the messiness. What about
family issues like divorce? It's not the end
of the world. 1972. That book was praised, widely
praised as almost like. Literary therapy for
kids going through their parents' divorce. Which
was becoming more common then. Increasingly common,
yeah, but still pretty absent from children's
literature. Bloom provided this really genuine
sympathetic guide through that confusion and
pain. Okay, but the one book that really cemented
her place on banned book lists forever. Oh. The
one that was maybe the most revolutionary. Has
to be forever. Forever. Published in 1975. Yeah.
Forever. Was it just groundbreaking for YA? A
lot of critics consider it the first major young
adult novel to portray a consensual teenage sexual
relationship between Catherine and Michael as,
well, normal. Normal. How so? Normal in the sense
that it was positive, healthy, and crucially,
it didn't end in some kind of obligatory tragedy.
You know, the usual tropes, unwanted pregnancy,
STDs, maybe even death, that often showed up
if a book even dared touch teen sex before them.
Right, the punishment for having sex. Exactly.
Bloom rejected that narrative. And there's a
story behind why she wrote it, isn't there? About
her daughter. Yeah, it's such a telling anecdote.
Apparently her daughter, Randy, who was 13 at
the time, told her she wanted to read a book
where the characters have sex, but, and this
is the quote, don't die afterward. Wow. Just
don't die. That's a low bar. But it says everything
about what was available. Doesn't it? That simple
desire for normalcy, for survival in a narrative,
was actually radical. And Bloom delivered. She
made the characters feel real, gave them believable
personalities. Catherine and Michael. Right.
And she included frank, detailed descriptions
of them using birth control. She emphasized consent.
And she depicted a relationship that, well, it
just... ran its natural course. It ended, but
not because of some external moral judgment or
divine intervention. Right. Here's where I think
it gets really interesting. This idea that her
books became this kind of roadmap for readers,
especially for young girls, right? Definitely.
Who maybe felt totally alone dealing with their
bodies, changing their feelings. She offered
this powerful counter -narrative to a culture
that, let's face it, often wrapped female sexuality
and purity in so much shame and silence. Absolutely.
By just normalizing these experiences, periods,
bras, crushes, sex, she wasn't just giving information,
she was giving validation. It was like her books
were saying, hey, it's okay, you're okay. And
more than okay, maybe. I read somewhere that
her books made being a woman pretty cool, actually.
Like suggesting there should be excitement and
curiosity about growing up, not just fear. Yes.
That sense of excitement, of resilience, that's
key. Critics who understood her work saw that
she gave her characters the freedom to be complicated,
to make mistakes, without needing to be saved
or condemned. She trusted the readers. She trusted
her readers, yeah. Trusted they were resilient
enough to handle disappointment, navigate regret,
without needing some heavy -handed moral lesson
from the author at the end. And that message
of agency, of survival, of trusting the reader's
intelligence, that's precisely why her work hit
so hard. And also why it became so threatening
to people. who thought books should impose strict
moral boundaries. Exactly. It challenged that
control. Now, before we move on from YA, we absolutely
have to give a shout out to her children's books
too. Because while we're focusing on the YA revolution,
the Fudge series was huge. Tales of a Fourth
Grade, nothing. Super Fudge, Double Fudge. Oh,
massive. Can't forget Fudge. Those books nailed
universal stuff like sibling rivalry, family
life. Perfectly. It shows she could connect with
really young readers, too. Her reach was just
incredible across all of childhood, really. Yeah,
totally. Peter and Fudge are iconic. Okay, so
by the late 70s, Bloom is basically the queen
of YA and disputed. But she didn't just stay
there, did she? Nope, she kept evolving. In 1978,
she made a pretty significant pivot, published
her first novel explicitly for adults. Wifey.
Wifey. And what was that about? Was it similar
territory? In a way, yes. It was a very direct,
very frank exploration of adult female sexuality,
sure, but also marital dissatisfaction. That
kind of existential boredom or dread that could
come with the suburban homemaker life she herself
had known. Ah, interesting connection. Back to
her own early writing days. Definitely. And the
move paid off instantly, commercially speaking.
Wow. Wifey sold over four million copies. Wow.
Yeah. Huge seller. Hit the New York Times bestseller
list hard. And you can see that thematic bridge,
right? She didn't really change her core subject.
That frank look at female desire, self -discovery,
maybe disillusionment. She just aged up the characters.
Exactly. Wifey was about a woman rebelling against
feeling. you know, consumed by domesticity, a
pretty natural progression from the girls in
her YA books who were figuring out who they were
going to be. Did you follow up with more adult
fiction? She did. In 1983, Smart Women came out,
another big success, also topped the Times list.
But it was her third adult novel, Summer Sisters,
in 1998, that really proved something interesting.
What was that? That the controversy would follow
her no matter who the intended audience was.
Ah, so Summer Sisters got pushback too, even
though it was for adults. Yep. It was another
huge commercial hit, sold over 3 million copies,
got a lot of critical praise actually for how
it depicted this really intense female friendship
over decades. But... the familiar criticisms
popped up again. It faced backlash for its sexual
content, which, again, was just a more mature
version of themes she'd always explored. Like
in Forever. Kind of, yeah. And also specifically
for including homosexual themes, it just showed
that for her critics, any frank portrayal of
sexuality, especially if it wasn't strictly traditional
or heterosexual, was still seen as the problem.
Didn't matter if the readers were adults. So
the core issue remained the same for them. Pretty
much. But commercially, her legacy was just untouchable
by then. You mentioned the 82 million copies
globally. Right. Translated into 32 languages.
She's not just an American phenomenon. She's
a global literary figure, period. Let's touch
briefly on her personal life again because it
weaves into this theme of resilience, doesn't
it? It does. We mentioned her first marriage
ended in divorce in 1975. She then married Thomas
Kitchens, a physicist, in 76. Okay. That led
to a brief move just a couple of years to Los
Alamos, New Mexico for his work. But they divorced
in 78. Then in 1987, she married George Cooper.
He's a former law professor who became a nonfiction
writer himself. And they're still together, living
down in Key West, Florida. Key West, okay. And
there was a health challenge later on, too. Yes.
In 2012, August 2012, she shared publicly that
she'd been diagnosed with breast cancer. It was
found during a routine ultrasound. Oh, wow. Yeah.
She was very open about the experience, the quick
diagnosis, the decision for a mastectomy and
reconstruction, and her recovery. Thankfully,
she became cancer -free. But it was another instance
where her real life showed that same kind of
resilience you see in her characters, facing
something huge and getting through it. That's
really powerful. And the literary life continued
within her family too, right, with her kids.
Yeah, it's actually quite lovely. Her son, Lawrence
Bloom, he's now a successful movie director,
producer, writer, and they've actually collaborated
quite a bit on adapting her work. Oh, cool. And
her daughter, Randy Bloom, she's a therapist
now, but she has this interesting subspecialty.
She helps writers work through blocks and actually
finish their projects. Wow, that's amazing. Supporting
the creative process directly. Exactly. And then
there's this charming little story about her
grandson, Elliot Keffart. Apparently, he was
the one who encouraged her to write the most
recent Fudge book, Double Fudge. No way. That's
great. Isn't it? Shows she's still connected
to that young reader perspective, even through
her own family. Okay, this brings us right back
to that central puzzle, the paradox. How does
the same writer, the same books, get showered
with prestigious awards and constantly end up
on banned book lists? Let's break down that contrast.
Start with the praise the reader loved. The praise
always comes back to honesty. And validation.
You hear it over and over from readers, especially
women who grew up with her books. They talk about
the immense relief they felt. Relief. Yeah. Relief
at finally reading someone being honest about
divorce, about how awkward puberty felt, about
being scared of death, confused about relationships.
All of it, that first person voice we talked
about, it made the books feel incredibly relatable,
like she got it. Nonjudgmental too, right? Totally
nonjudgmental. Readers felt seen, understood.
She got countless letters, especially from young
girls, saying Margaret felt like them or that
she was the first author who really understood
their inner lives. So the books were seen as
taboo trampling. But in a good way, like helpful.
Exactly. Helpful, informative, made them feel
less alone, maybe more prepared for what was
coming. It was like this shared secret, this
validation that your worries were normal. OK,
so that's the love. Now, the backlash. The institutional
opposition. Yeah. When did that really gear up?
Well, there were murmurs early on, but it really
started in earnest in the late 1970s and then
just exploded in the 1980s. Coinciding with?
Coinciding with a more organized and vocal conservative
movement in the U .S. A lot of the challenges
came from conservative parent groups, religious
organizations, people wanting more control over
what was available in schools and libraries.
Since about 1980, her novels have just been ground
zero for YA controversy. So what was the core
argument against her? What was the main criticism?
The main line of attack was usually that she
put too much emphasis on the physical stuff,
the sexual side of growing up. And that in doing
so, she was neglecting, or some even argued,
actively undermining the development of morals,
of emotional maturity. So basically, it was a
fight over the purpose of literature. Should
it reflect messy reality, or should it impose
a specific moral ideal? That's pretty much it.
There was this fear that... Just by describing
something like teen sex or questioning religion,
she was automatically endorsing it, promoting
it even. And this ties into something you mentioned
earlier, the pushback against, what was it, the
infantilization of women. Yeah, I think that's
a really crucial lens here. Bloom treated the
inner lives, the questions, the experiences of
teenage girls as inherently important, significant,
not silly or trivial. She respected their intelligence
and curiosity. Exactly. And their resilience.
The censors often seem to operate from this belief
that kids, especially girls, needed to be shielded
from reality. Protected from knowledge, almost,
until some vaguely defined appropriate age or
until a parent or church approved. And Bloom's
work just blew past that boundary. Completely.
Her books... basically said, hey, girls are curious.
They're capable. They're even excited about growing
up, even with the bumps. They don't need you
to filter reality for them. And that assertion,
that was deeply threatening to the control narrative.
The specific examples of censorship are pretty
wild, aren't they? Even with Margaret. Oh, right
from the start. Bloom herself tells the story.
The principal of her own kid's elementary school
refused to put, are you there, God? It's me,
Margaret in the library. Why? Because it mentioned
menstruation. Because it mentioned menstruation.
A basic biological fact. And that specific fight,
it's still going on today. Conservative and religious
groups still try to ban it because the way it
portrays puberty clashes with their views. Decades
later. Wow. And then, of course, forever. That
book is just the permanent lightning rod. Because
of the sex and birth control. Because it depicted
teen sex and birth control without condemning
the characters. It was just relentlessly targeted.
Its status was so notorious that the American
Library Association ranked its seventh seventh.
on their list of the top 100 most banned books
for the entire decade of the 1990s. The entire
90s. That's incredible. It shows the battle wasn't
just about protecting kids. It was about who
gets to control information about sex and bodies.
Should it be the library? The school? Or only
the parent, only the church. And even Blubber,
the bullying book, got flagged. Yeah, interestingly,
Blubber got criticized for that realistic, somewhat
ambiguous ending we talked about where the bully
doesn't get a clear punishment. Critics felt
that sent a bad message. Like, see, you can be
cruel and get away with it. They missed the point
that, well, sometimes that is how things work
in childhood and exploring that ambiguity is
valuable. But through all this, Bloom herself
didn't back down. Not even slightly. That's the
remarkable part. When the controversies really
heated up in the 80s, when the political pressure
was mounting, she made a choice. She became an
activist. She started actively reaching out.
connecting with other writers, with teachers,
with librarians, building a coalition, basically,
to fight back against censorship. It was like
her career gained this whole second track focused
on intellectual freedom. So she became a public
advocate. A very public, very tireless advocate
for the freedom to read. That led her to join
the National Coalition Against Censorship, the
NCAC. She's still on their board today. Wow.
Still fighting that fight. Absolutely. And her
activism isn't just about her own books anymore.
It's about the principle. Protecting free expression
for all authors and ensuring all young readers
have access to diverse ideas. She also co -founded
the Kids Fund, which is a foundation focused
on supporting kids' needs. And didn't she take
this commitment even further, like into her business
life? She did. It's really quite something. In
2018, she and her husband, George Cooper, opened
a bookstore in Key West. But not just any bookstore,
a nonprofit bookstore called Bookstore. and books.
A non -profit bookstore. Yeah. It's like this
statement, you know, reinforcing the idea that
the physical space of a bookstore is vital. It's
a protected zone for curiosity, for intellectual
freedom. She literally took the fight from the
often hostile school board meetings right onto
the main street. Okay, so you have the decades
of banning attempts on one side, but on the other,
an absolutely incredible collection of honors
and awards. That serves as the ultimate rebuttal,
doesn't it? It really does. The sheer number
is amazing. Over 90 literary awards, including
three separate Lifetime Achievement Awards just
in the U .S. The literary establishment has basically
said loud and clear, yes, her contribution is
invaluable. What are some of the big ones, the
really high -profile honors? Well, in 1996, she
got the Margaret A. Edwards Award from the ALA,
the American Library Association. That's specifically
for significant and lasting contributions to
young adult literature. Okay. And what's really
telling— is that the ala specifically mentioned
forever when they gave her that award the most
banned book exactly the very book that caused
so much controversy was explicitly recognized
for its value by the library association itself
that's a statement definitely what else in 2000
the library of congress named her a living legend
in their writers and artists category Kind of
bumps her up from just being popular to being
part of America's cultural heritage. Living Legend.
Nice title. Isn't it? And then, maybe the biggest
one, in 2004, she received the National Book
Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution
to American Letters. Okay, that's huge. That's
like the literary world's highest honor, pretty
much. It's right up there. It basically signals
that her work, her creation of this realistic
YA genre, is now seen as an essential, positive
chapter in American literary history. Full stop.
And she got awards for the activism, too. Oh,
yeah. Numerous awards recognizing her fight for
free speech, like the Carl Sandburg Freedom to
Read Award way back in 84, an honor from the
NCAC in 2009, acknowledging that her work as
an advocate is just as important as her writing.
It's just striking, isn't it? The nation honors
her at the highest levels while local groups
are still trying to ban her. The paradox continues.
Let's shift to her cultural footprint beyond
just the books and awards, media adaptations.
Those really show enduring relevance, right?
For sure. And the first one came pretty early.
A TV movie based on Forever aired on CBS back
in 1978. 78? Wow, that was quick. Yeah, starring
Stephanie Zimbalist. Shows how quickly the material
resonated and seemed adaptable for the screen.
And she worked with her son on some adaptations.
She did. They collaborated early on on a TV version
of otherwise known as Sheila the Great in 1988
for ABC. That partnership kind of set the stage
for bigger things later. Were the kids books
adapted to like Fudge? Oh, yeah. The Fudge TV
series based on Fudgemania. It ran for two seasons,
95 to 97, started on ABC, then moved to CBS.
Just proved again how timeless Peter and Fudge's
dynamic was. Hilarious. But when did you make
the jump to like. Future films and theaters.
That came in 2012 with Tiger Eyes. Yeah. Based
on her 1981 novel. The one about the girl dealing
with her father's death. That's the one. It was
significant because it was her first book turned
into a full theatrical movie. And she co -wrote
the screenplay with her son, Lawrence, who also
directed it. So keeping it in the family, ensuring
it stayed true to the book. Seems like that was
the goal. Yeah. And then just recently, 2023.
That felt like a real Judy Blume moment, didn't
it? Absolutely. A huge year for her visibility.
You had the premiere of the documentary, Judy
Blume Forever, which won a Peabody Award, by
the way. Wow, Peabody. Yeah. And at the same
time, the future film adaptation of Are You There,
God? It's Me, Margaret, finally came out. Finally.
People waited decades for that one. He really
did. And the film got great reviews, especially
for capturing the book's tone and honesty so
well. It just proved that story hadn't lost any
of its relevance in over 50 years. And there's
more coming. Looks like it. Her most controversial
book, Forever, is apparently being adapted into
a series for Netflix, scheduled for 2025. Wow.
Still pushing boundaries, even in adaptation.
Seems so. And her influence pops up in other
places too, right? Like music. Yeah, that Amanda
Palmer song from 2018, just called Judy Blume.
Right. That song is like this perfect cultural
artifact. The lyrics spell out exactly how Bloom's
books were this crucial guide for Palmer growing
up, helping her understand periods, sex, all
the intimate stuff. But also the big universal
things. Exactly. Like grief, poverty, parents
divorcing. Palmer's song basically says Bloom
gave her the language, the framework to understand
life. She's just baked into the cultural psyche
for so many people. Hashtag tag, hashtag outro.
So wrapping up this deep dive, I mean, the big
takeaway has to be that duality, right? This
constant tension in Judy Blume's career. Absolutely.
On one side, you have the National Book Foundation
honoring her for a distinguished contribution
to American letters. Highest praise possible.
And on the other side, she's still a lightning
rod. Still a target for censorship year after
year. It's because she pioneered that frank,
honest, nonjudgmental talk about what adolescence
is really like. Sexuality, puberty, death, divorce.
All the messy stuff that society, especially
back then, really wanted to keep hidden from
kids. She just refused to hide it. So what does
it all mean, looking at it now? What's a lasting
impact? I think her body of work stands as this
powerful, ongoing argument against... that tendency
to infantilize young people, especially young
women. Treating them like they can't handle the
truth. Exactly. Her novels insisted that teenage
feelings, teenage problems, teenage questions
are important, that teens are resilient. She
proved readers could handle honesty and the fact
that kids kept demanding her books, kept reading
them secretly if they had to, despite all the
efforts to ban them. That just confirms she met
this deep, fundamental need. A need for literary
honesty that just wasn't being met anywhere else
at the time. Okay, so here's a final thought
for you, our listeners, to chew on. Something
provocative. Judy Blume built this incredible,
decades -long career focusing on the immediate
stuff of growing up. Puberty, first love. Social
anxieties. The right now feelings. The very present
tense of adolescence. Right. But then her 2015
novel In the Unlikely Event, the one based on
the plane crashes, it reveals that this author,
known for tackling the immediate, actually held
on to her own deepest, most traumatic childhood
experience, those plane crashes from the 50s,
for almost 60 years and saved that story for
her mature later work. Huh. That's a really interesting
point. It makes you wonder, doesn't it, how often
the really profound traumas, the deep wounds,
have to wait. Wait until an artist feels secure,
maybe feels like their voice is established,
before they can finally unearth them and shape
them into art. Something to think about.