Judy Blume

About five years back, I had a great idea-or so I thought-to start reading my favorite Judy Blume books again.  My oldest was six at the time and I had just checked Freckle Juice out of the library for her. While she didn’t know who Judy Blume was, I was salivating at the thought of sharing a gigantic part of my childhood with her. I couldn’t wait for her to meet Fudge and Peter Hatcher. I wondered if she would think Sheila was as great as I did. What would her favorite book be?  Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret?, Iggy’s House, Deenie, Blubber. How old would she have to be before I let her read Tiger Eye’s and Forever?  Would she devour everything Judy wrote just like I did? The answer….no.

She may or may not have finally finished Are You There God, but she is eleven and who wouldn’t want to read about all the mysteries of girlhood and how to increase their bust? I think the best part was when she asked me why the girls needed to use a belt for a maxi pad because maxi pads had stickers on them.

As much as it broke my heart that Judy Blume was lost on her, it did cause make allow me to devour these timeless treasures all over again.  And devour, I did. I think it took me just about two weeks, but I reread every.single.one….including the steamy grown up ones like Wifey, Summer Sisters and Smart Women. I guess my point in even revisiting this is, my daughter is in her first year of middle school. And life is beginning to get complicated. Not just for her, but for her peers as well. And as I begin to think about how awful and awkward these years are, I am grateful all over again for Judy. She was/is a friend who was able to put words to feelings and thoughts I thought were exclusive to me. She made me feel normal when my home life was anything but normal.

About the same time that I started rereading her books, I came across a book of essays titled Everything I Needed to Know About Being aGirl I Learned from Judy Blume. I don’t know why they didn’t ask me to contribute, but that is beside the point. The point is that it is true. I may not have caught the lessons the first time around, but the seeds were planted. I was bullied like Linda in Blubber, but I learned how to cope and that it was only a matter of time before the bullies would move on to a different target if I didn’t let them see me cry. I learned it wasn’t The End of The World when my parents sat me down to tell me their marriage was over. I learned that judging someone by skin color was lame in Iggy’s House. There were so many more lessons along the way, but just about every one could be traced back to an author in New Mexico New Jersey New York…wherever she was living at the time. Judy didn’t just touch my life. She touched countless kids lives in the late 70s and 80s…and as my second born started reading a few years back, I realized she is touching lives still. My nine year old has eight Judy Blume books on her shelf and keeps asking when she can get more. She still has to wait a few years for some of the more complicated ones, but the fact that she has fallen in love with Judy makes me love her just a little more than her older sister. Kidding. Not really.