An Ode to Judy Blume

Yesterday was National Women’s Day so I was thinking about the influential women in the world and especially the ones who write YA books. There was one who came to mind as she was a trailblazer in this genre and is having a resurgence of popularity just now. Judy Blume was one of the first YA writers that I was conscious of, that wrote books about tween and teen girls that I could relate to. Recently, it was announced that Are You there God, It’s Me Margaret is being adapted into a movie and Summer Sisters is becoming a Hulu series. I am there for both of these things. (And if you haven’t read “Everything I Learned About Being a Girl, I Learned From Judy Blume”, you should.)

When I was growing up, YA existed but was not nearly as popular as it is today. Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret was the first Judy Blume book I read. My mother told me to buy it at our Scholastic Book Fair (remember those?) I asked the librarian if she had it and she did not want to sell it to me. She told me it was too “advanced.” My mother visited parent’s night at the book fair and brought it home. It was not until later that I learned that the book had been banned and that my school librarian was doing her own censoring of content. But I read it anyway. And I was hooked. I loved Just as Long as We’re Together and read it so many times that my copy was falling apart. I read the juicy parts of Forever with my friends and then the whole book. And no book I read about complicated female friendships measures up to Summer Sisters.

Now there are many more women who write in authentic female teen voices – Angie Thomas, Sarah Dessen, Laurie Halse Anderson, etc but back then…it was only Judy Blume. As we celebrate women and Women’s History, Judy Blume deserves a special place among female writers as one who spoke directly to teen girls honestly about difficult topics when no one else would.