July 8, 2015 • 43 mins
One of the most beloved and banned authors, Judy Blume wrote adolescence like no other. Cristen and Caroline investigate how Judy Blume's real life intersected with her fictional books, censorship activism and feminism.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to stuff Mom Never told you from how stup
works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Kristen and I'm Caroline. And today on the show, we
are talking about Judy Bloom. That's right, I mean, I
can hear the screaming. I know. I feel like we
(00:24):
should just pause for listeners to jump up and down,
crazy applause, clap their hands, dance maybe, yeah, maybe dance,
perhaps a little dance, grab their copy of Forever and
and just start rereading it and forget that. Yeah, forget
there listening to a podcast. Um. So, when we announced
(00:47):
on Facebook that we were going to talk about Judy
Bloom and we're asking for listeners favorite Judy Bloom titles,
people erupted in the comments in the best possible kind
of way. Yeah. I mean, I don't know, We've only
I feel like we've only received feedback like that on
a couple of very specific topics. Judy Bloom is obviously
(01:08):
obviously very close to people's hearts, and and for good reason.
This is a woman who has written or or did
right in the seventies and still now is writing about
things that other people just don't. She's she's being so
honest with her readers about a lot of stuff that
maybe sometimes your parents didn't even talk to you about.
Maybe it is stuff that your mom never even told you.
(01:31):
We just brought a full circle, Caroline, we get in
the podcast That's fine stuff Mob never told you, the
Judy Bloom of podcasts. Right new tagline, Judy Blooms lawyers
might come after us um. I loved this quote though,
from Ellen Barry at The Boston Phoenix, who called Judy
(01:51):
Bloom the woman who invented American adolescents. And this would
also be a good time to note that she just
came out with a new book. Yeah, and everybody's writing
about it by calling it an adult book. Not that
it's not, not that it's not for grown ups. But
Judy Bloom herself has talked a lot about how you
(02:11):
shouldn't limit yourself, that her books that people call young
adult books can be for anyone, and and same with this,
because all of her themes are universal and I think
hit home for a lot of people. Yeah, I mean,
and she doesn't even like being called a young adult author.
She was like, I wasn't writing for young adults. I
(02:33):
was just writing Yeah, exactly, why do we need these boxes.
Judy Bloom doesn't care for boxes, but she does care
for leather and denim jackets. Yes. I love this conversation
that Judy Bloom had with Chloe seventy. They were talking
about Judy's books and her character's fashion, which I think
is a really fascinating conversation and so adorable and informative
(02:56):
because you know, in Judy Bloom's books she always seems
to mention sweaters, all so many sweaters, many sweaters. But
but Bloom ends up talking about how one of her
favorite periods in fashion was very specific. It was Santa
Fe fashion in the seventies because she got to wear
a lot of leather jackets and kind of prairie skirts
(03:16):
over boots. And I just imagine how fabulous that would be.
I mean, I love it. What's not to love about
all that? And of course Kloy seventy would ask about
about passion right um. And she also mentioned side note
listeners that she especially identified with Deanie because she also
(03:36):
had scoliosis. It's like, here's someone going through what I'm
going through, which really encompasses why Judy Bloom is so beloved,
And we can even quantify just how beloved of an author.
She is because Caroline Judy Bloom has sold eighty two
million books. That'll buy you a lot of leather jackets.
(04:00):
Many lovers maleather jackets. But what comes along with her
readers identifying with her honest writing so much is the
flip side of that, which is the fact that five
of her books are on the American Library Association's one
hundred Most Frequently Challenged Books from the period between nineteen
and nine and still even today in she is super Challenge.
(04:24):
That doesn't mean the books have been banned yet. Challenge
just means that people have brought a challenge saying that
the book is inappropriate for certain readers. But they have
been actually banned not only in school libraries but also
in at home libraries like my home library growing up,
which we'll talk about later. Um. But before she got
(04:46):
to where she is now with a two million books sold,
in nineteen sixty nine, she published her first book, The
One in the Middle is the Green Kangaroo when the
title is fantastic. She written thirty two books, and she
swears up and down that her most recent novel, in
the Unlikely Event, will be her last. Yeah, and it's
(05:09):
it's kind of great to read interviews where she's talking
about it because she's not at all She's not at
all sad. She's very much optimistic about Hey, you know what,
like that's kind of behind me, that whole stressful working
a million hours a day every single day for months.
I just kind of want to put that to the
side and enjoy life with my husband George, who again
she talks about him in such an amazing way too.
(05:30):
I'm just sort of I'm sort of fan growing out
over Judy Bloom's whole life, really, the jackets, the romantic
relationship with her husband, the fact that she's like, I'm
just gonna go on trips and enjoy life. But the
thing is, though, Caroline, it hasn't always been so sunny
for Judy Blown. She went here some tough times even
while she was at her most prolific in the seventies.
(05:53):
So for for a brief Judy Bloom bio. She was
born in in Elizabeth, New Jersey, where her most recent
book is set, which she's talked a lot about how
she finally, after so many books, is coming back home
for it. And she got married the first time at
(06:14):
twenty one to John m. Bloom. He of her last
name Bloom, of course. Yeah. And so by the time
she was twenty five, she already had two kids, and
she talks a lot about She's very open with the
fact that, yes, she is friends now with her first husband,
but back then it was really difficult because she she
(06:34):
talks about, how, you know, that's such a young age
to get married. You barely even know yourself at twenty one,
as grown up as you might feel, and as common
as it was at the time for people to be married.
By twenty one, my mom was married. Yeah, and but
she she talks about how, uh, you know, she was
missing that creative energy and creative outlets that she had
(06:56):
as a child. And she's so clearly and in such
a crystallized fashion, remembers what it was like to be
a kid and to run around and be creative and
not be basically tied down by life. And so um
she around this time starts writing and talks about how
that saved her life. Yeah. I mean, and we should
(07:17):
know that she had gone to college, she got her
degree in education, but then realized that writing was the
thing that was really in her blood, and she started
by just making up rhyming stories while doing the dishes
at night, and and she would add little illustrations to them,
package them up and send them off to publishers. And
(07:38):
as her interest grew, she started to think, you know,
I think I want to tackle novels. So she takes
a writing course at n y U. And honestly, even still,
I mean, I know that it was not simple at
this time for her to be a mother of two
and you know, like writing these stories in her spare time,
but she still makes it sound so easy. I took
(08:00):
a writing course and then the rest is history, right, Well,
not yet. There was actually a lot of rejection in
the beginning. Yeah, according to her biography. Ever, at the
Jewish Women's Archive, Judy Bloom received I keep calling her
Judy Bloom because I want to call her Judy, and
then I worry that that's disrespectful. But I feel like
we would call each other by our first names if
(08:21):
we hung out, Yeah, Or would you try to go
for a nickname like j B. J Blue? J Blue
whoa well so old? J Blue received about six or
even more rejection slips every week for two and a
half years before the book. The One in the Middle
of The Green Kangaroo was finally accepted, so keep that
(08:44):
in mind aspiring creatives, that rejection is part of the process. Um.
And after that publication of The One in the Middle
is the Green Kangaroo, her first novel, Iggy's House, was published,
and The Guardian describes Iggy's House as the story of Winnie,
a girl who's quintessentially white suburban American street gets its
(09:05):
first black family and who was confronted with and confronts racism.
So right out of the gate, Judy Bloom is tackling issues. Yeah,
and and during this period from nineteen seventy and ninety seven,
she hits this creative burst. So she finally gets her
books accepted and they're published. And those were the famous
(09:29):
years when her books Blubber Tales of a fourth Grade Nothing,
Sally J. Friedman and are you there, God, It's Me
Margaret came out, which I'm a thirty one year old
woman and I just read are you there, God, It's
Me Margaret for the first time last week. And we're
going to talk all about that the podcast, because I
wanted to hear all your thoughts. Caroline and I haven't
(09:51):
really discussed our feelings about are You There, God, It's
Me Margaret, which I recently read for the first time
as well, So I'm very excited to get that point um.
And speaking though of are You There, God, It's Me Margaret,
which came out in nineteen seventy, I believe, she says,
that's a real turning point for her to start developing
(10:12):
this honest style that is really what so many adolescents
and kids and even teens or even thirty year old
women have gravitated to over the years. But in the background,
as she is really getting her first taste of literary success,
it's it's not all roses on the home front. In
(10:35):
nineteen she divorces John M. Bloom and for a snapshot
of what life was like when you got divorced in
nineteen seventy five, Judy Bloom told makers that the first
thing her mother said was, well, how could you possibly
leave such a beautiful house? Yeah? Uh, I don't know.
(10:58):
I feel like that's something my mother would say. But
there were so few choices. Yeah, exactly, you know, but
women's women's liberation was in full swing and Judy Bloom J.
Bloom was on board for it well. In nineteen seventy six.
She was also on board for marrying Thomas A. Kitchens
and moving to New Mexico. And that's when she gets
into all the leather jackets and she talks about how
(11:20):
to Chloe seventy In that same interview, which I'm obviously
obsessed with. I just didn't realize that until right now,
talks about how her children went to school with Tom Ford.
I know, and yeah, don't you wish I could have
been like a three way conference call. We could have
just we could have just hopped on with both of them. Yeah.
I wouldn't even have to have asked any questions or
talked on sidle like those calls in middle school, like
(11:41):
when you do the three way call to figure out
if a boy liked your friend or whatever. Maybe like um,
Judy asked Chloe if she likes us, and they'd be like,
who is this? How did you hack this line? Judy
gets Margaret that I don't want to freak Judy out though,
UM J Blue J Blue, Yeah, r J bloom J Blue. Well.
(12:02):
Three years later, she and Thomas divorced and she moved
to New York and in nineteen eighties seven she meet Well,
I don't know when she met him, but she marries
her beloved George Cooper again. I love hearing her talk
about George. Oh. She she's just over the moon about George.
Still is. And there's this fantastic quote from Harper's Bazaar
(12:24):
that makes me really look forward to my forties, although
it won't be taking place in the nineteen seventies. She
said quote, I was at my best in the seventies.
I turned forty, and that's when I met George, So
it seems like a romantic, sexy time to me. He
remembers the night of our first date. It was winter
and I took off my boots and I didn't have
any socks on, and he thought that was the most
(12:45):
amazing thing he'd ever seen. Girl takes off boots, no socks. Wow,
that was something. Yeah, I love it. I love picturing
like there by a roaring fire in my mind. I
feel like if that had been me, though, and I
taken off my boots and no socks, yes, gentlemen would
have said, wow, please put your boots back on. Yeah, Wow,
(13:08):
you're just gonna do that hump that's just happening. Wow,
that is a stinge. Yeah, I feel like romance cannot
overcome foot smell well, I mean, yeah, really in love,
maybe true love. It's a test perhaps, but not early romance.
I mean, that's proof that it was love at first
boot love it first foot, learn of it first foot
(13:32):
vergfort Um. And another refreshing thing about Jitti Bloom, which
is also not surprising honestly, is that she does not
hesitate to call herself a feminist and answer in the
affirmative when asked whether she is one, and yeah, she
was telling makers quote, I don't understand why some young
people think feminism is a bad word. Maybe they just
(13:53):
don't know what it was like to worry all the
time about getting pregnant and to be terrified even within
our mayor ridges. And she goes on to say that
the women's movement gave her courage, And like you said,
it's not surprising that she identifies as a feminist because
she was a twice divorced working mom in the seventies
(14:14):
writing about girls having sex and not being punished for it. Yeah. Yeah.
She talks about her book Forever, which is a huge
book for so many people, in which I still have
to read. Um. But her daughter Randy actually requested the book. Um,
she was sick of reading stories about young people who
(14:36):
made the decision to have sex or be intimate in
one way or another and then end up plot wise
getting punished for it in some way, you know, like
the Young Person book where at the end evil is
punished and bad actions are punished, and all of this stuff,
and that all included sex or any type of sexual activity.
And so Judy Bloom takes up the mantle of safe
(14:57):
young person, responsible sex and says, I have to write
this book, and I I loved finding out about how
different books intersected with her real life. So how Forever
was written for Randy, and how Tiger Eyes was inspired
by the difficulties that her son encountered with that move
(15:18):
to New Mexico after she got married for the second
time and sort of uprooted the family a little bit.
And she she admits openly that there were times when
her personal life was a mess, but she was still
writing these books and trying to figure it out. And
then she met George and took off her boots and
everything everything got so much better, except for when n
(15:44):
hits and censorship really starts to come down on Bloom. Yeah,
and we're not talking about people focusing solely on Jooty
Bloom's book. It was more of a cultural movement going on,
and her books being published really coincided with a sharp
rise and attempted books censorship here in the US in
(16:04):
the nineteen seventies and eighties, And writing specifically about Jitty
Bloom and censorship in the neo neo American is that
was hard to say. Mallory as Emanski talks about how
in the early to late nineteen seventies, So, I guess
I could just say the nineteen seventies challenges of books
made to the American Library Association or pretty low. They were.
(16:26):
They were increasing, but they were still pretty low. They
were about three hundred per year by the late seventies,
but in one nearly a thousand challenges were reported. And
so Jitty Bloom's books, which we've said a couple of
times now, we're just very honest and very open with
themes like sexuality and religion, that was part of that wave. Yeah.
(16:46):
She talks about how puberty was a dirty word at
the time, and it's understandable that this was happening in
the nineteen eighties because you have the Reagan administration and
this rise of con servitism at the time, so censorship
kind of goes into overdrive and it and it turned
her into an anti censorship activists of sorts. As she
(17:12):
writes about this on her website, quote, I believe that
censorship grows out of fear, and because fear is contagious,
some parents are easily swayed. Book banning satisfies their need
to feel in control of their children's lives, and the
spear is often disguised as moral outrage. They want to
believe that their children don't read about it, their children
(17:32):
won't know about it, and if they don't know about it,
it won't happen, which in my experience growing up in
a household where Judy Bloom books were intentionally not allowed
because of how they discussed things like religion, puberty, sexuality,
(17:53):
and children just generally having opinions that that's not the
case at all, obviously, and Judy Bloom knew that puberty,
what's gonna happen to me? And and and encounters with sexuality,
We're gonna happen to me regardless of whether I read
Judy Bloom or not, right, And I mean this whole
(18:14):
thing is, it's the same conversation that surrounds sex said
in this country in terms of like believing that if
you just don't say s e X two kids, they'll
never figure it out and no one will ever get pregnant,
no one will ever have an STD, where in reality,
Judy Bloom kind of knew better than that, and knew
because she literally was receiving letters from scared, sad, confused, lonely,
(18:39):
unsure children. Her readers were writing her things, writing her
letters just saying, you know, am I normal? You know
people are starting rumors about me at school, I'm getting bullied.
When am I going to get my period? All of
the things that her characters, like Margaret and are you there?
God it to me Margaret struggle with Well, I mean,
it's it's the fact that she wrote about kids as
(19:02):
people and not just these these kids with who need
to be protected or shushed. Yeah, exactly. And amid the
Harry Potter panic and all the censorship going on around that,
she wrote an op ed of The New York Times saying, quote,
the real danger is not the books, but in laughing
(19:25):
off those who would ban them. Because she takes censorship
very seriously. And not just because it might hurt her
book sales. Yeah, she's she's a super active voice in
the anti censorship community because she basically says, you know,
if we keep letting people ban books that they disagree
with for their own personal reasons, then what's going to
(19:45):
be left on the library shelves? How will kids ever
learn anything? And she she made a point in one
of the sources we read where she was talking about
censorship that you know, in my books, kids tend to
and and and in really any book, kids to and
to skip over and just sort of gloss over and
gloss past things and concepts they don't understand. So it's
(20:06):
not like they're getting spoiled by certain concepts that she
writes about in her books. But she did say that, Okay,
if they do read or pick up on a concept
in my book that maybe they're not sure about or
they can't tell what it means or if it's wrong,
or what it has to do with their bodies or whatever,
then maybe they'll actually get to take it to their
parents and say, could we talk about this, could you
(20:28):
help explain it? And then it's sort of up to
the parents to parents and either talk about it or say,
you know, make a decision about the book at that point.
And that honesty that we have emphasized over and over
again already is certainly a cornerstone of why Judy Bloom
has been so beloved by readers of all ages for
(20:50):
so long. And now we're going to get a little
bit more into the individual books themselves and the impacts
that they have had not only on us, but also
famous authors who've probably heard of, and even some stuff
Mom never told you listeners. So we'll get into that
when we come right back from a quick break. Now,
(21:18):
even though we've already touched on it a little bit,
we're really going to take this half of the podcast
who dig into the specifics of why Judy Bloom is
so beloved, and really it comes down to the exact
same reasons that she's so relentlessly censored because she is
unafraid of writing, frankly about boys, girls, socialization, changing bodies,
(21:43):
all of these things that in our own adolescent minds
kind of get us spinning and worried and concerned, and
even more so probably for parents and adults who want
to shelter us from all of those more prurient things
like bodies and puberty and relationships. Yeah, whereas hey, wouldn't
(22:05):
that just be easier to just give me a jitty
Blom book then let me learn about the facts of life.
Although I was never given any Judy Bloom books, I
don't think they were censored in my house. I don't
think my mom was purposely trying to keep them out.
I just don't remember even really being aware of them.
When I was growing up. You never got secretly past
a Warren copy of Forever I was, Kristen, you and
(22:29):
I have talked about this. I was reading romance novels like, oh, yeah,
you were past Judy Bloom. Caroline really didn't need really
didn't need Bool a time I was like early puberty.
I was reading romance novels that my mom had left
around the house. So yeah, I guess I did skip
over the but argue there, God, it's me Margaret stage.
I went right for the bodice ripping. I love that
(22:51):
you and I are both now circling back to the
age appropriate literature of our early youths. Yeah, I picked
it up, you know. Kristen and I decided to do
this episode because it harkens back to the the Young
Adult Summer Reading episode we did last last year, last summer,
and we're talking about how neither one of us had
(23:11):
read a Judy Bloom And so when I read are
You There, God, It's Me Margaret, I was pretty much
smiling throughout the whole thing because I think it's I
think it's adorable, and I think her writing is so
important and I loved reading even though obviously I'm so
far past all that stuff. It was so great and
refreshing to read someone talking about puberty in that way
(23:35):
and the way that girls can be in the way
that it's like you just feel like you're the only
weirdo on the planet sometimes when you're growing up. I mean,
I still you know, chant my must increase my bust
ritual every night. Yeah, and because one day it might
take Caroline Um, I had the same experience reading are
(23:57):
you there, God, It's me Margaret, finding it hilarious and
also just basically enjoying as a writer her the spare
style of how she uses language so economically to communicate
like a kid's brain. So well, yeah, well that was
(24:19):
also refreshing. And Leada Dunham has a quote about this too,
about loving Judy Bloom for the way she writes kids.
She says, Judy is one of the only authors who,
at the time she started writing, acknowledge that kids have
a fully formed consciousness and questions that aren't innocent, and
a sense of what's happening in the adult world around them.
(24:39):
I mean, you know, it was so great when you
were a kid to encounter a grown up who talked
to you, who indulged you enough to talk to you
like a grown up, and to treat you like you
did have a brain and you did have opinions, even
if your opinions were ridiculous and very you know, appropriate
to whatever age you were. You know, a nine year
old doesn't know much about Israeli politics or any thing
(25:00):
like that. But well, speak for yourself, Carolin. Well, um,
so yeah, so, so I also appreciated reading a character
written like that. Well, and even though we're reading these books,
what forty years after they were originally written, she's still
touching on timeless issues. Yeah, I mean, and that's that
(25:25):
seems like that's such an inappropriate word for it. That
it's just like basic like dynamics of adolescents in terms
of girl friendships and how do you deal with that
girl's developing bodies. I mean, in a little bit of
select shaming that happened among some of the girls, and
are you there, god, A's me Margaret and just crushes
like how you feel when you see a boy or
(25:48):
a girl and your stomach kind of erupts. Yeah, I know.
And a lot of people ask Judy Bloom if she
was trying to write these books as lessons as teaching
tools is a political tool, and she's very adamant that, no,
these were not, and this wasn't any of that stuff.
I wasn't trying to teach people something or teach people
a lesson. I just had these stories and I had
(26:10):
to write them. But it just so happened that my
voice was sort of alone in in in that in
the way that I ended up writing. And she says,
maybe I'm trying to illuminate. I've always felt that my
responsibility as a writer is to be honest. When I
first started writing, I felt that adults hadn't ever been
honest with me or my generation. Our parents loved us,
(26:30):
but their way of loving was to never tell us
the truth about anything, and to protect us from what
they thought we shouldn't know. Or the things they felt
uncomfortable discussing. So I wanted to be honest for kids
in my books the way I wanted adults to be
honest with me when I was growing up and growing
up in that post World War two era of so
(26:52):
much silence like that. I mean, it must have had
such a big impact because like kids today, thanks to
the Internet, will will probably never grow up in as
culturally sheltered as you know baby boomer children did. And
probably because she was starting so genuinely from from almost
(27:15):
that just blank canvas, it sort of shaped the entire
just like it gave her that need for honesty that
she wouldn't have had otherwise if she were growing up
with a little more knowledge about how things are a
little more access to information about how things work. And
(27:36):
I mean, she's very clearly upfront with a lot of
teen and purity related issues and a lot of her books,
and that includes the book Deanie with the famous or
infamous depending on how you look at it and maybe
whether you're a school principle, uh, the scene that features
masturbation and Deanie. Deanie has scoliosis, and that's the focus
(27:57):
of the book. But a lot of people do focus
and zero in on the fact that she's sort of
discovering her body. You know, she's experiencing scoliosa. She's this
pretty young girl. She has to wear an embarrassing back
brace and deal with what that means and what people
think about her. But it also focuses on just being
a young girl and discovering your body and your physicality
(28:18):
and what feels good. Yeah. And I mean, speaking as
a woman who was once a young girl, that would
have a helpful thing for me to have and read
to be like, oh well and yeah, especially since in
the book, the gym teacher is also very I don't
want to say sex positive, I don't want to go
that far, but it's also very like, no, you're you're
(28:39):
touching yourself, this is masturbation, it's normal, it's goodly sex positive.
Well yeah, but I mean, I don't know if Judy
Bloom would use the word sex positis, right, she hates labels. Um.
When I was reading about how basically positive and supportive
the gym coach was, my mind was blown. I mean,
my face was just like, oh really, because I don't
I never read anything like that at all when I
(29:02):
was growing up, and so to have, to have not
only a book like Forever, where sex between teens is
written as something that is done between responsible young adults
who've made a decision and practice safe sex, do not
only have that, but then to have sort of this
ancillary character who's like, no, you're okay, You're okay in
(29:22):
your body and you're doing something normal and it's not wrong,
You're all right. It's just even now in it's mind blowing. Well,
it's also revealing getting her insight on Sally J. Friedman
starring herself, which Judy Bloom has said is her most
autobiographical novel, and um In an epilogue to You a
(29:44):
later edition of the book, she wrote, quote, when I
was ten, I was a lot like Sally, curious, imaginative,
a warrior, and my stories, which I never wrote down
or shared, I was brave and strong. I let a
life of drama, adventure in fame. I think the character
of Sally explains how and why I became a writer,
(30:05):
And that to me says so much and and makes
so plain why her books are as forthright as they are. Well,
not only that, but I think it illustrates why she's
such a passionate advocate for basically allowing children to read
(30:26):
what they want to read to fight censorship, because she
talks about how, you know, when I was a kid,
I was reading these these books with adventure and fantasy
in them, and you know what, it made me want
to go out and do fly. She writes about how
it just these things they're not meant to convince children
like Harry Potter. They're not meant to convince children that,
you know, magic is a thing, and that religion is bad,
(30:49):
and that wizards are going to rule the world. It's
more about letting children imagine and fantasize and and delve
into that world of imagination where they can be any
one and do anything, and how powerful that can be
on a child's own sense of creativity. I was a
super obsessive, constant reader growing up, and I also love
(31:09):
to write. No, I didn't write anything amazing or great.
You know. I wasn't like Penning the Great Out of
This podcast Studio then, and I wasn't Penning the Great
American Novel at seven. But in reading wonderful stories of
adventure and fantasy and or novels about friendship or or teamwork,
like it makes you realize that the world is bigger
(31:31):
and it can be a wonderful place. Yeah. And it's
also to giving kids that sense of normalcy, which is
so important. And this is something that's emphasized over and
over again in Letters to Judy What Kids Wish They
Could tell You Um, which is a collection of letters
from readers to Judy bloom Um that includes things like
(31:56):
letters from a Fern girl named Fern, nine years salt,
who says, dear Judy, please tell me the facts of
life in numbered order. I love that so much. I
am also a very h like rigid. I like things
in order and in lists and to do lists and schedules,
and so I I identify with nine year old Fern,
well in the nine year old Fern and all these
(32:18):
other kids writing, like ultimately, what they really want is
to just know, like, am I okay? Am I? Normal?
Is what I'm going through? Like right? And will I
fit in? You know? All all of those, you know,
just kind of vexing questions that certainly don't evaporate once
you get out of adolescent Yeah, and I mean sure, well,
(32:40):
when you grow up, it starts you start to realize that, like, hey,
maybe being like everyone else is and all it's cracked
up to be. But when you're going through puberty, or
when you're about to hit puberty, and maybe you you
haven't had any sort of talk with your parents or
any sort of education about your body, when things start changing,
that's that can be really scary and stressful. And so
(33:01):
you're sure not going to talk about it with friends
if you're really embarrassed by it. So to have somebody
like Judy Bloom to let you know, she's like almost
like the goddess of adolescence. Yeah, I mean, her books
have served as such a companion. This was something that
Samantha b from The Daily Show and her forthcoming solo show,
talked about to The New York Times and how she
(33:24):
saw herself reflected in the lead character in Blubber And
she says, not from the bullying point of view, but
from the point of view of a kid who's trying
to fit in a striver I recognize in myself that
feeling of oh, you've got to work hard to belong,
You've got to figure it out, and that is so
I mean, I I have felt that same thing when
(33:46):
I was a kid reading Beverly Cleary books. Because you know,
Ramona resonated so much with me because I saw myself
on the page, and that's such an empowering thing for
a kid to feel that you are represented. Then that
just somebody gets it. Yeah, yeah, and that makes you
and that makes you okay, and that gives you, you know,
(34:07):
a little bit of a boost to muddle through all
of the adult things that might not make any sense,
that you might not have any control over whatsoever. Yeah,
And like you know, reading are you there, God, it's me,
Margaret Um. She's dealing with parents who are of a
different religion. She's dealing with, you know, her grandparents who
(34:28):
were radically different from one another. She's dealing with a
new school, new friends, a best friend who's a little
bit bossy, a little bit Nancy Wheeler, a lot of bit,
a lot of bit, and also having a secret crush
on a boy that you know, maybe you're not supposed
to have a crush on, but you just can't help it.
He looks so good mo in the lawn, I mean.
(34:51):
And also, haven't we all had to deal with a
Nancy Wheeler at some point? Even as I was reading
that book at thirty, I was like, oh, oh, Nancy, Nancy.
But I've been both of them. I've been Nancy, and
I've been Margaret, and you've been the crush mowing the lawn.
I have never mowed a lawn. That's something. Okay, So wait,
(35:11):
thirty one is the year that I finally read Are
you there? God, it's me Margaret. Maybe it's the year
I'll finally mow a lawn. You know, I've mowed a
number of lawns in my day. That is not a euphemism.
And I'll tell you what. It's not bucket list worth it.
It's not yet, it's not cracked up. What all it
is cracked up to be? Not all it's cracked up
(35:33):
to be. Um. Well, we've talked a lot about parents, adults,
these generic stodgy humans who don't want to inform younger
kids about the facts of life, and that was something
to point it out in a New Yorker piece by
Anna Holmes on why Judy bloom books means so much
(35:55):
to her and to other girls in particular, and she
talks about how the depiction of adult women in the
books a lot of times are, as she describes it,
highly anxious, easily upset, overly protective and obsessed with outward appearances,
and she notes that perhaps Judy Bloom is also in
(36:18):
that process, really emphasizing this contrast between these earlier times
in our lives that we should appreciate when what's going
on inside of our heads feels like everything and we
have so many feelings and we're trying to sort it
out and every moment is the best or the worst
before you kind of transition into this time when there
(36:42):
is so much body focus and anxiety and just general womanhood. Yeah,
you know, there's so much more. There is such a
sense of freedom, um in a lot of her characters.
I think, well, yeah, and then the fact that, like,
while everything seems so big and heavy when it comes
(37:04):
to worrying about your period, worrying about you are you
going to grow boobs? Finally? Um, But then they get
to go run outside in the sprinkler, And so I
think there's something I just I just really loved reading
about these kids who like, uh, you don't have to
worry about taxes, yet you just have to worry about
filling out your bra and running through a sprinkler. I
(37:25):
missed that. I missed it, And you know what, I
was so jealous of was how she was able to
just walk over to Nancy Wheeler's house. It was just
like this. You know, neighborhoods were so different back then.
I mean, and we're talking about you know, the New
Jersey suburbs and you just let the kids out and yeah,
I just walk over to someone's house, bike over to
(37:47):
somebody's house. Um. That was something that I wish I
had had more of as a kid. But I also
I read that in other books too, and was always like, man,
that'd be cool. I want a neighborhood gang. Yeah. I
was part of a neighborhood gang. Ing of there were
four or five of us. It was. I grew up
next door to two boys, and then my my best
friend Ali was down the street with her sister, and
(38:08):
so I was I was the only child that sort
of floated between siblings. And we'd wander the neighborhood and
would you bike around, we'd bike around. We'd I get
my dogs to pull me on the skateboard of the
boy next door, yes, or because we've talked about on
our skateboarding episode. Um, yeah, and then play with makeup
and stuff with the girls. So yeah, I do it.
(38:29):
Was it was nice to think back to that time
of like sweaty summers as a kid, roaming from house
to house and basically having your parents just in the
air conditioning inside, not worried about it. So, Caroline, what's
your next Judy Bloom reread going to be? Well? I
I have to buy Blubber, and I have to buy Forever.
But literally, the next Judy Bloom book that is in
(38:52):
my bag right now is super Fudge, oh yeah, and
which she said was based on her son's or her
son one of the two. Yes, super Fudge was one
I remember my mom's citing as a reason why no
not okay? Well then I can't wait to read it.
I know, please please don't tell my mom. Uh, let
(39:14):
me just pass it, pass it to me by under
the under the cubicle or something. Yeah, so so my
mom won't find out. Um, the next book of hers,
I would like to read His Wife, Oh yeah, one
of her more adult novels, partially because the title intrigues me,
and also partially because I love a good story about
(39:37):
repressed housewives. I'm not gonna lie. We we just need
to have sort of an ongoing jitty blim book club.
It sounds like it sounds like someone listening is going
to organize that. I know if somebody to get on that.
I have a have a sminty fan book club going on. Well,
and speaking of listeners, of course, we want to hear
from you. We want all of your Judy Bloom thoughts.
(39:58):
Mom Stuff at how stuff works dot com is our
email address. You can also tweet us your favorite Judy
Bloom titles hashtag Judy Bloom. You can also message us
on Facebook, and in lieu of our typical listener mail segment,
We're going to share some of your Facebook comments about
(40:18):
Judy Bloom because they're just too good and too excited
not to. So these are responses to the question what
is your favorite Judy Bloom book? Serta Combs candidate said,
o MG starring Sally J. Freeman as herself is my
(40:42):
caps all time favorite book. Please please please read it.
You will freaking love it. And Serena, I'm so glad
to see your comment because I just realized that I
botched that title earlier in the podcast when I mentioned it,
So friends, please save your self an email. The correct
title I realized I'm correcting myself now is starring Sally J.
(41:05):
Freedman as herself, not Sally J. Freeman starring herself well.
Speaking of Fudge and Forever, Jennifer writes, I remember really
enjoying the Fudge books in third grade. In high school,
I found my mom's old copy of Forever with sticky
notes marking certain pages. I mentioned them to her, and
then the next time I picked up the book to
keep reading, they had mysteriously vanished. Michelle's Serenity Salas said,
(41:31):
Summer Sisters and Wifey read them both when I was
four eighteen, and I remember my lady parts feeling very
adult while reading these books in class. Amy Wheeler Colburn writes,
it's a tie between Tiger Eyes and Iggy's House. Those
books changed me so profoundly. I am positive I still
have them packed away somewhere, and I'm inspired to go
(41:53):
pull them out. Alicia Adams commented, I love everything this
woman ever penned. Truly how me through some of the
most difficult parts of my childhood. I can probably recite
at least the first chapter of Tales of fourth Grade
Nothing from Memory. Also, was I the only little black
kid who flipped when the show came out and Jimmy
(42:13):
Fargo was black. That made my entire week. Remember it
like it was yesterday. Kelsey and Romanoff rights Forever. It
taught me young relationships are hard for everyone and to
value myself. But it didn't have that don't have sex
or you will die vibe at least that I remember. No, Kelsey,
I think you're right. Bertha Collie said, it's somewhat ironic
(42:37):
that I'm at a loss for words when it comes
to Judy Bloom and what she meant to me when
I was a preteen and beyond God, I have tears
in my eyes even trying to think of what to
say right now. The only word that comes to mind
is gratitude. I'm so grateful for Judy Bloom. Marianne Boyer
hopping rights. Oh, I think I need to do some rereading.
(42:57):
Are you there? God? And Forever were faves of mine.
I remember being shocked that I was allowed to read
Forever and making sure my parents didn't find out what
was in it. And speaking of which Linda Allen commented,
Forever my mom called it porn. Well, listeners, we can't
wait to hear more from you about Judy Bloom and
(43:18):
why you think she is so beloved mom. Stuff at
how stuff works dot com is our email address and
for links to all of our social media as well
as all of our blogs, videos, and podcasts, including this
one with links for US sources. So you can learn
more about the life of Judy Bloom. Head on over
to stuff Mom Never Told You dot com for more
(43:42):
on this and thousands of other topics. Because it how
stuff works dot com.
Welcome to stuff Mom Never told you from how stup
works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Kristen and I'm Caroline. And today on the show, we
are talking about Judy Bloom. That's right, I mean, I
can hear the screaming. I know. I feel like we
(00:24):
should just pause for listeners to jump up and down,
crazy applause, clap their hands, dance maybe, yeah, maybe dance,
perhaps a little dance, grab their copy of Forever and
and just start rereading it and forget that. Yeah, forget
there listening to a podcast. Um. So, when we announced
(00:47):
on Facebook that we were going to talk about Judy
Bloom and we're asking for listeners favorite Judy Bloom titles,
people erupted in the comments in the best possible kind
of way. Yeah. I mean, I don't know, We've only
I feel like we've only received feedback like that on
a couple of very specific topics. Judy Bloom is obviously
(01:08):
obviously very close to people's hearts, and and for good reason.
This is a woman who has written or or did
right in the seventies and still now is writing about
things that other people just don't. She's she's being so
honest with her readers about a lot of stuff that
maybe sometimes your parents didn't even talk to you about.
Maybe it is stuff that your mom never even told you.
(01:31):
We just brought a full circle, Caroline, we get in
the podcast That's fine stuff Mob never told you, the
Judy Bloom of podcasts. Right new tagline, Judy Blooms lawyers
might come after us um. I loved this quote though,
from Ellen Barry at The Boston Phoenix, who called Judy
(01:51):
Bloom the woman who invented American adolescents. And this would
also be a good time to note that she just
came out with a new book. Yeah, and everybody's writing
about it by calling it an adult book. Not that
it's not, not that it's not for grown ups. But
Judy Bloom herself has talked a lot about how you
(02:11):
shouldn't limit yourself, that her books that people call young
adult books can be for anyone, and and same with this,
because all of her themes are universal and I think
hit home for a lot of people. Yeah, I mean,
and she doesn't even like being called a young adult author.
She was like, I wasn't writing for young adults. I
(02:33):
was just writing Yeah, exactly, why do we need these boxes.
Judy Bloom doesn't care for boxes, but she does care
for leather and denim jackets. Yes. I love this conversation
that Judy Bloom had with Chloe seventy. They were talking
about Judy's books and her character's fashion, which I think
is a really fascinating conversation and so adorable and informative
(02:56):
because you know, in Judy Bloom's books she always seems
to mention sweaters, all so many sweaters, many sweaters. But
but Bloom ends up talking about how one of her
favorite periods in fashion was very specific. It was Santa
Fe fashion in the seventies because she got to wear
a lot of leather jackets and kind of prairie skirts
(03:16):
over boots. And I just imagine how fabulous that would be.
I mean, I love it. What's not to love about
all that? And of course Kloy seventy would ask about
about passion right um. And she also mentioned side note
listeners that she especially identified with Deanie because she also
(03:36):
had scoliosis. It's like, here's someone going through what I'm
going through, which really encompasses why Judy Bloom is so beloved,
And we can even quantify just how beloved of an author.
She is because Caroline Judy Bloom has sold eighty two
million books. That'll buy you a lot of leather jackets.
(04:00):
Many lovers maleather jackets. But what comes along with her
readers identifying with her honest writing so much is the
flip side of that, which is the fact that five
of her books are on the American Library Association's one
hundred Most Frequently Challenged Books from the period between nineteen
and nine and still even today in she is super Challenge.
(04:24):
That doesn't mean the books have been banned yet. Challenge
just means that people have brought a challenge saying that
the book is inappropriate for certain readers. But they have
been actually banned not only in school libraries but also
in at home libraries like my home library growing up,
which we'll talk about later. Um. But before she got
(04:46):
to where she is now with a two million books sold,
in nineteen sixty nine, she published her first book, The
One in the Middle is the Green Kangaroo when the
title is fantastic. She written thirty two books, and she
swears up and down that her most recent novel, in
the Unlikely Event, will be her last. Yeah, and it's
(05:09):
it's kind of great to read interviews where she's talking
about it because she's not at all She's not at
all sad. She's very much optimistic about Hey, you know what,
like that's kind of behind me, that whole stressful working
a million hours a day every single day for months.
I just kind of want to put that to the
side and enjoy life with my husband George, who again
she talks about him in such an amazing way too.
(05:30):
I'm just sort of I'm sort of fan growing out
over Judy Bloom's whole life, really, the jackets, the romantic
relationship with her husband, the fact that she's like, I'm
just gonna go on trips and enjoy life. But the
thing is, though, Caroline, it hasn't always been so sunny
for Judy Blown. She went here some tough times even
while she was at her most prolific in the seventies.
(05:53):
So for for a brief Judy Bloom bio. She was
born in in Elizabeth, New Jersey, where her most recent
book is set, which she's talked a lot about how
she finally, after so many books, is coming back home
for it. And she got married the first time at
(06:14):
twenty one to John m. Bloom. He of her last
name Bloom, of course. Yeah. And so by the time
she was twenty five, she already had two kids, and
she talks a lot about She's very open with the
fact that, yes, she is friends now with her first husband,
but back then it was really difficult because she she
(06:34):
talks about, how, you know, that's such a young age
to get married. You barely even know yourself at twenty one,
as grown up as you might feel, and as common
as it was at the time for people to be married.
By twenty one, my mom was married. Yeah, and but
she she talks about how, uh, you know, she was
missing that creative energy and creative outlets that she had
(06:56):
as a child. And she's so clearly and in such
a crystallized fashion, remembers what it was like to be
a kid and to run around and be creative and
not be basically tied down by life. And so um
she around this time starts writing and talks about how
that saved her life. Yeah. I mean, and we should
(07:17):
know that she had gone to college, she got her
degree in education, but then realized that writing was the
thing that was really in her blood, and she started
by just making up rhyming stories while doing the dishes
at night, and and she would add little illustrations to them,
package them up and send them off to publishers. And
(07:38):
as her interest grew, she started to think, you know,
I think I want to tackle novels. So she takes
a writing course at n y U. And honestly, even still,
I mean, I know that it was not simple at
this time for her to be a mother of two
and you know, like writing these stories in her spare time,
but she still makes it sound so easy. I took
(08:00):
a writing course and then the rest is history, right, Well,
not yet. There was actually a lot of rejection in
the beginning. Yeah, according to her biography. Ever, at the
Jewish Women's Archive, Judy Bloom received I keep calling her
Judy Bloom because I want to call her Judy, and
then I worry that that's disrespectful. But I feel like
we would call each other by our first names if
(08:21):
we hung out, Yeah, Or would you try to go
for a nickname like j B. J Blue? J Blue
whoa well so old? J Blue received about six or
even more rejection slips every week for two and a
half years before the book. The One in the Middle
of The Green Kangaroo was finally accepted, so keep that
(08:44):
in mind aspiring creatives, that rejection is part of the process. Um.
And after that publication of The One in the Middle
is the Green Kangaroo, her first novel, Iggy's House, was published,
and The Guardian describes Iggy's House as the story of Winnie,
a girl who's quintessentially white suburban American street gets its
(09:05):
first black family and who was confronted with and confronts racism.
So right out of the gate, Judy Bloom is tackling issues. Yeah,
and and during this period from nineteen seventy and ninety seven,
she hits this creative burst. So she finally gets her
books accepted and they're published. And those were the famous
(09:29):
years when her books Blubber Tales of a fourth Grade Nothing,
Sally J. Friedman and are you there, God, It's Me
Margaret came out, which I'm a thirty one year old
woman and I just read are you there, God, It's
Me Margaret for the first time last week. And we're
going to talk all about that the podcast, because I
wanted to hear all your thoughts. Caroline and I haven't
(09:51):
really discussed our feelings about are You There, God, It's
Me Margaret, which I recently read for the first time
as well, So I'm very excited to get that point um.
And speaking though of are You There, God, It's Me Margaret,
which came out in nineteen seventy, I believe, she says,
that's a real turning point for her to start developing
(10:12):
this honest style that is really what so many adolescents
and kids and even teens or even thirty year old
women have gravitated to over the years. But in the background,
as she is really getting her first taste of literary success,
it's it's not all roses on the home front. In
(10:35):
nineteen she divorces John M. Bloom and for a snapshot
of what life was like when you got divorced in
nineteen seventy five, Judy Bloom told makers that the first
thing her mother said was, well, how could you possibly
leave such a beautiful house? Yeah? Uh, I don't know.
(10:58):
I feel like that's something my mother would say. But
there were so few choices. Yeah, exactly, you know, but
women's women's liberation was in full swing and Judy Bloom J.
Bloom was on board for it well. In nineteen seventy six.
She was also on board for marrying Thomas A. Kitchens
and moving to New Mexico. And that's when she gets
into all the leather jackets and she talks about how
(11:20):
to Chloe seventy In that same interview, which I'm obviously
obsessed with. I just didn't realize that until right now,
talks about how her children went to school with Tom Ford.
I know, and yeah, don't you wish I could have
been like a three way conference call. We could have
just we could have just hopped on with both of them. Yeah.
I wouldn't even have to have asked any questions or
talked on sidle like those calls in middle school, like
(11:41):
when you do the three way call to figure out
if a boy liked your friend or whatever. Maybe like um,
Judy asked Chloe if she likes us, and they'd be like,
who is this? How did you hack this line? Judy
gets Margaret that I don't want to freak Judy out though,
UM J Blue J Blue, Yeah, r J bloom J Blue. Well.
(12:02):
Three years later, she and Thomas divorced and she moved
to New York and in nineteen eighties seven she meet Well,
I don't know when she met him, but she marries
her beloved George Cooper again. I love hearing her talk
about George. Oh. She she's just over the moon about George.
Still is. And there's this fantastic quote from Harper's Bazaar
(12:24):
that makes me really look forward to my forties, although
it won't be taking place in the nineteen seventies. She
said quote, I was at my best in the seventies.
I turned forty, and that's when I met George, So
it seems like a romantic, sexy time to me. He
remembers the night of our first date. It was winter
and I took off my boots and I didn't have
any socks on, and he thought that was the most
(12:45):
amazing thing he'd ever seen. Girl takes off boots, no socks. Wow,
that was something. Yeah, I love it. I love picturing
like there by a roaring fire in my mind. I
feel like if that had been me, though, and I
taken off my boots and no socks, yes, gentlemen would
have said, wow, please put your boots back on. Yeah, Wow,
(13:08):
you're just gonna do that hump that's just happening. Wow,
that is a stinge. Yeah, I feel like romance cannot
overcome foot smell well, I mean, yeah, really in love,
maybe true love. It's a test perhaps, but not early romance.
I mean, that's proof that it was love at first
boot love it first foot, learn of it first foot
(13:32):
vergfort Um. And another refreshing thing about Jitti Bloom, which
is also not surprising honestly, is that she does not
hesitate to call herself a feminist and answer in the
affirmative when asked whether she is one, and yeah, she
was telling makers quote, I don't understand why some young
people think feminism is a bad word. Maybe they just
(13:53):
don't know what it was like to worry all the
time about getting pregnant and to be terrified even within
our mayor ridges. And she goes on to say that
the women's movement gave her courage, And like you said,
it's not surprising that she identifies as a feminist because
she was a twice divorced working mom in the seventies
(14:14):
writing about girls having sex and not being punished for it. Yeah. Yeah.
She talks about her book Forever, which is a huge
book for so many people, in which I still have
to read. Um. But her daughter Randy actually requested the book. Um,
she was sick of reading stories about young people who
(14:36):
made the decision to have sex or be intimate in
one way or another and then end up plot wise
getting punished for it in some way, you know, like
the Young Person book where at the end evil is
punished and bad actions are punished, and all of this stuff,
and that all included sex or any type of sexual activity.
And so Judy Bloom takes up the mantle of safe
(14:57):
young person, responsible sex and says, I have to write
this book, and I I loved finding out about how
different books intersected with her real life. So how Forever
was written for Randy, and how Tiger Eyes was inspired
by the difficulties that her son encountered with that move
(15:18):
to New Mexico after she got married for the second
time and sort of uprooted the family a little bit.
And she she admits openly that there were times when
her personal life was a mess, but she was still
writing these books and trying to figure it out. And
then she met George and took off her boots and
everything everything got so much better, except for when n
(15:44):
hits and censorship really starts to come down on Bloom. Yeah,
and we're not talking about people focusing solely on Jooty
Bloom's book. It was more of a cultural movement going on,
and her books being published really coincided with a sharp
rise and attempted books censorship here in the US in
(16:04):
the nineteen seventies and eighties, And writing specifically about Jitty
Bloom and censorship in the neo neo American is that
was hard to say. Mallory as Emanski talks about how
in the early to late nineteen seventies, So, I guess
I could just say the nineteen seventies challenges of books
made to the American Library Association or pretty low. They were.
(16:26):
They were increasing, but they were still pretty low. They
were about three hundred per year by the late seventies,
but in one nearly a thousand challenges were reported. And
so Jitty Bloom's books, which we've said a couple of
times now, we're just very honest and very open with
themes like sexuality and religion, that was part of that wave. Yeah.
(16:46):
She talks about how puberty was a dirty word at
the time, and it's understandable that this was happening in
the nineteen eighties because you have the Reagan administration and
this rise of con servitism at the time, so censorship
kind of goes into overdrive and it and it turned
her into an anti censorship activists of sorts. As she
(17:12):
writes about this on her website, quote, I believe that
censorship grows out of fear, and because fear is contagious,
some parents are easily swayed. Book banning satisfies their need
to feel in control of their children's lives, and the
spear is often disguised as moral outrage. They want to
believe that their children don't read about it, their children
(17:32):
won't know about it, and if they don't know about it,
it won't happen, which in my experience growing up in
a household where Judy Bloom books were intentionally not allowed
because of how they discussed things like religion, puberty, sexuality,
(17:53):
and children just generally having opinions that that's not the
case at all, obviously, and Judy Bloom knew that puberty,
what's gonna happen to me? And and and encounters with sexuality,
We're gonna happen to me regardless of whether I read
Judy Bloom or not, right, And I mean this whole
(18:14):
thing is, it's the same conversation that surrounds sex said
in this country in terms of like believing that if
you just don't say s e X two kids, they'll
never figure it out and no one will ever get pregnant,
no one will ever have an STD, where in reality,
Judy Bloom kind of knew better than that, and knew
because she literally was receiving letters from scared, sad, confused, lonely,
(18:39):
unsure children. Her readers were writing her things, writing her
letters just saying, you know, am I normal? You know
people are starting rumors about me at school, I'm getting bullied.
When am I going to get my period? All of
the things that her characters, like Margaret and are you there?
God it to me Margaret struggle with Well, I mean,
it's it's the fact that she wrote about kids as
(19:02):
people and not just these these kids with who need
to be protected or shushed. Yeah, exactly. And amid the
Harry Potter panic and all the censorship going on around that,
she wrote an op ed of The New York Times saying, quote,
the real danger is not the books, but in laughing
(19:25):
off those who would ban them. Because she takes censorship
very seriously. And not just because it might hurt her
book sales. Yeah, she's she's a super active voice in
the anti censorship community because she basically says, you know,
if we keep letting people ban books that they disagree
with for their own personal reasons, then what's going to
(19:45):
be left on the library shelves? How will kids ever
learn anything? And she she made a point in one
of the sources we read where she was talking about
censorship that you know, in my books, kids tend to
and and and in really any book, kids to and
to skip over and just sort of gloss over and
gloss past things and concepts they don't understand. So it's
(20:06):
not like they're getting spoiled by certain concepts that she
writes about in her books. But she did say that, Okay,
if they do read or pick up on a concept
in my book that maybe they're not sure about or
they can't tell what it means or if it's wrong,
or what it has to do with their bodies or whatever,
then maybe they'll actually get to take it to their
parents and say, could we talk about this, could you
(20:28):
help explain it? And then it's sort of up to
the parents to parents and either talk about it or say,
you know, make a decision about the book at that point.
And that honesty that we have emphasized over and over
again already is certainly a cornerstone of why Judy Bloom
has been so beloved by readers of all ages for
(20:50):
so long. And now we're going to get a little
bit more into the individual books themselves and the impacts
that they have had not only on us, but also
famous authors who've probably heard of, and even some stuff
Mom never told you listeners. So we'll get into that
when we come right back from a quick break. Now,
(21:18):
even though we've already touched on it a little bit,
we're really going to take this half of the podcast
who dig into the specifics of why Judy Bloom is
so beloved, and really it comes down to the exact
same reasons that she's so relentlessly censored because she is
unafraid of writing, frankly about boys, girls, socialization, changing bodies,
(21:43):
all of these things that in our own adolescent minds
kind of get us spinning and worried and concerned, and
even more so probably for parents and adults who want
to shelter us from all of those more prurient things
like bodies and puberty and relationships. Yeah, whereas hey, wouldn't
(22:05):
that just be easier to just give me a jitty
Blom book then let me learn about the facts of life.
Although I was never given any Judy Bloom books, I
don't think they were censored in my house. I don't
think my mom was purposely trying to keep them out.
I just don't remember even really being aware of them.
When I was growing up. You never got secretly past
a Warren copy of Forever I was, Kristen, you and
(22:29):
I have talked about this. I was reading romance novels like, oh, yeah,
you were past Judy Bloom. Caroline really didn't need really
didn't need Bool a time I was like early puberty.
I was reading romance novels that my mom had left
around the house. So yeah, I guess I did skip
over the but argue there, God, it's me Margaret stage.
I went right for the bodice ripping. I love that
(22:51):
you and I are both now circling back to the
age appropriate literature of our early youths. Yeah, I picked
it up, you know. Kristen and I decided to do
this episode because it harkens back to the the Young
Adult Summer Reading episode we did last last year, last summer,
and we're talking about how neither one of us had
(23:11):
read a Judy Bloom And so when I read are
You There, God, It's Me Margaret, I was pretty much
smiling throughout the whole thing because I think it's I
think it's adorable, and I think her writing is so
important and I loved reading even though obviously I'm so
far past all that stuff. It was so great and
refreshing to read someone talking about puberty in that way
(23:35):
and the way that girls can be in the way
that it's like you just feel like you're the only
weirdo on the planet sometimes when you're growing up. I mean,
I still you know, chant my must increase my bust
ritual every night. Yeah, and because one day it might
take Caroline Um, I had the same experience reading are
(23:57):
you there, God, It's me Margaret, finding it hilarious and
also just basically enjoying as a writer her the spare
style of how she uses language so economically to communicate
like a kid's brain. So well, yeah, well that was
(24:19):
also refreshing. And Leada Dunham has a quote about this too,
about loving Judy Bloom for the way she writes kids.
She says, Judy is one of the only authors who,
at the time she started writing, acknowledge that kids have
a fully formed consciousness and questions that aren't innocent, and
a sense of what's happening in the adult world around them.
(24:39):
I mean, you know, it was so great when you
were a kid to encounter a grown up who talked
to you, who indulged you enough to talk to you
like a grown up, and to treat you like you
did have a brain and you did have opinions, even
if your opinions were ridiculous and very you know, appropriate
to whatever age you were. You know, a nine year
old doesn't know much about Israeli politics or any thing
(25:00):
like that. But well, speak for yourself, Carolin. Well, um,
so yeah, so, so I also appreciated reading a character
written like that. Well, and even though we're reading these books,
what forty years after they were originally written, she's still
touching on timeless issues. Yeah, I mean, and that's that
(25:25):
seems like that's such an inappropriate word for it. That
it's just like basic like dynamics of adolescents in terms
of girl friendships and how do you deal with that
girl's developing bodies. I mean, in a little bit of
select shaming that happened among some of the girls, and
are you there, god, A's me Margaret and just crushes
like how you feel when you see a boy or
(25:48):
a girl and your stomach kind of erupts. Yeah, I know.
And a lot of people ask Judy Bloom if she
was trying to write these books as lessons as teaching
tools is a political tool, and she's very adamant that, no,
these were not, and this wasn't any of that stuff.
I wasn't trying to teach people something or teach people
a lesson. I just had these stories and I had
(26:10):
to write them. But it just so happened that my
voice was sort of alone in in in that in
the way that I ended up writing. And she says,
maybe I'm trying to illuminate. I've always felt that my
responsibility as a writer is to be honest. When I
first started writing, I felt that adults hadn't ever been
honest with me or my generation. Our parents loved us,
(26:30):
but their way of loving was to never tell us
the truth about anything, and to protect us from what
they thought we shouldn't know. Or the things they felt
uncomfortable discussing. So I wanted to be honest for kids
in my books the way I wanted adults to be
honest with me when I was growing up and growing
up in that post World War two era of so
(26:52):
much silence like that. I mean, it must have had
such a big impact because like kids today, thanks to
the Internet, will will probably never grow up in as
culturally sheltered as you know baby boomer children did. And
probably because she was starting so genuinely from from almost
(27:15):
that just blank canvas, it sort of shaped the entire
just like it gave her that need for honesty that
she wouldn't have had otherwise if she were growing up
with a little more knowledge about how things are a
little more access to information about how things work. And
(27:36):
I mean, she's very clearly upfront with a lot of
teen and purity related issues and a lot of her books,
and that includes the book Deanie with the famous or
infamous depending on how you look at it and maybe
whether you're a school principle, uh, the scene that features
masturbation and Deanie. Deanie has scoliosis, and that's the focus
(27:57):
of the book. But a lot of people do focus
and zero in on the fact that she's sort of
discovering her body. You know, she's experiencing scoliosa. She's this
pretty young girl. She has to wear an embarrassing back
brace and deal with what that means and what people
think about her. But it also focuses on just being
a young girl and discovering your body and your physicality
(28:18):
and what feels good. Yeah. And I mean, speaking as
a woman who was once a young girl, that would
have a helpful thing for me to have and read
to be like, oh well and yeah, especially since in
the book, the gym teacher is also very I don't
want to say sex positive, I don't want to go
that far, but it's also very like, no, you're you're
(28:39):
touching yourself, this is masturbation, it's normal, it's goodly sex positive.
Well yeah, but I mean, I don't know if Judy
Bloom would use the word sex positis, right, she hates labels. Um.
When I was reading about how basically positive and supportive
the gym coach was, my mind was blown. I mean,
my face was just like, oh really, because I don't
I never read anything like that at all when I
(29:02):
was growing up, and so to have, to have not
only a book like Forever, where sex between teens is
written as something that is done between responsible young adults
who've made a decision and practice safe sex, do not
only have that, but then to have sort of this
ancillary character who's like, no, you're okay, You're okay in
(29:22):
your body and you're doing something normal and it's not wrong,
You're all right. It's just even now in it's mind blowing. Well,
it's also revealing getting her insight on Sally J. Friedman
starring herself, which Judy Bloom has said is her most
autobiographical novel, and um In an epilogue to You a
(29:44):
later edition of the book, she wrote, quote, when I
was ten, I was a lot like Sally, curious, imaginative,
a warrior, and my stories, which I never wrote down
or shared, I was brave and strong. I let a
life of drama, adventure in fame. I think the character
of Sally explains how and why I became a writer,
(30:05):
And that to me says so much and and makes
so plain why her books are as forthright as they are. Well,
not only that, but I think it illustrates why she's
such a passionate advocate for basically allowing children to read
(30:26):
what they want to read to fight censorship, because she
talks about how, you know, when I was a kid,
I was reading these these books with adventure and fantasy
in them, and you know what, it made me want
to go out and do fly. She writes about how
it just these things they're not meant to convince children
like Harry Potter. They're not meant to convince children that,
you know, magic is a thing, and that religion is bad,
(30:49):
and that wizards are going to rule the world. It's
more about letting children imagine and fantasize and and delve
into that world of imagination where they can be any
one and do anything, and how powerful that can be
on a child's own sense of creativity. I was a
super obsessive, constant reader growing up, and I also love
(31:09):
to write. No, I didn't write anything amazing or great.
You know. I wasn't like Penning the Great Out of
This podcast Studio then, and I wasn't Penning the Great
American Novel at seven. But in reading wonderful stories of
adventure and fantasy and or novels about friendship or or teamwork,
like it makes you realize that the world is bigger
(31:31):
and it can be a wonderful place. Yeah. And it's
also to giving kids that sense of normalcy, which is
so important. And this is something that's emphasized over and
over again in Letters to Judy What Kids Wish They
Could tell You Um, which is a collection of letters
from readers to Judy bloom Um that includes things like
(31:56):
letters from a Fern girl named Fern, nine years salt,
who says, dear Judy, please tell me the facts of
life in numbered order. I love that so much. I
am also a very h like rigid. I like things
in order and in lists and to do lists and schedules,
and so I I identify with nine year old Fern,
well in the nine year old Fern and all these
(32:18):
other kids writing, like ultimately, what they really want is
to just know, like, am I okay? Am I? Normal?
Is what I'm going through? Like right? And will I
fit in? You know? All all of those, you know,
just kind of vexing questions that certainly don't evaporate once
you get out of adolescent Yeah, and I mean sure, well,
(32:40):
when you grow up, it starts you start to realize that, like, hey,
maybe being like everyone else is and all it's cracked
up to be. But when you're going through puberty, or
when you're about to hit puberty, and maybe you you
haven't had any sort of talk with your parents or
any sort of education about your body, when things start changing,
that's that can be really scary and stressful. And so
(33:01):
you're sure not going to talk about it with friends
if you're really embarrassed by it. So to have somebody
like Judy Bloom to let you know, she's like almost
like the goddess of adolescence. Yeah, I mean, her books
have served as such a companion. This was something that
Samantha b from The Daily Show and her forthcoming solo show,
talked about to The New York Times and how she
(33:24):
saw herself reflected in the lead character in Blubber And
she says, not from the bullying point of view, but
from the point of view of a kid who's trying
to fit in a striver I recognize in myself that
feeling of oh, you've got to work hard to belong,
You've got to figure it out, and that is so
I mean, I I have felt that same thing when
(33:46):
I was a kid reading Beverly Cleary books. Because you know,
Ramona resonated so much with me because I saw myself
on the page, and that's such an empowering thing for
a kid to feel that you are represented. Then that
just somebody gets it. Yeah, yeah, and that makes you
and that makes you okay, and that gives you, you know,
(34:07):
a little bit of a boost to muddle through all
of the adult things that might not make any sense,
that you might not have any control over whatsoever. Yeah,
And like you know, reading are you there, God, it's me,
Margaret Um. She's dealing with parents who are of a
different religion. She's dealing with, you know, her grandparents who
(34:28):
were radically different from one another. She's dealing with a
new school, new friends, a best friend who's a little
bit bossy, a little bit Nancy Wheeler, a lot of bit,
a lot of bit, and also having a secret crush
on a boy that you know, maybe you're not supposed
to have a crush on, but you just can't help it.
He looks so good mo in the lawn, I mean.
(34:51):
And also, haven't we all had to deal with a
Nancy Wheeler at some point? Even as I was reading
that book at thirty, I was like, oh, oh, Nancy, Nancy.
But I've been both of them. I've been Nancy, and
I've been Margaret, and you've been the crush mowing the lawn.
I have never mowed a lawn. That's something. Okay, So wait,
(35:11):
thirty one is the year that I finally read Are
you there? God, it's me Margaret. Maybe it's the year
I'll finally mow a lawn. You know, I've mowed a
number of lawns in my day. That is not a euphemism.
And I'll tell you what. It's not bucket list worth it.
It's not yet, it's not cracked up. What all it
is cracked up to be? Not all it's cracked up
(35:33):
to be. Um. Well, we've talked a lot about parents, adults,
these generic stodgy humans who don't want to inform younger
kids about the facts of life, and that was something
to point it out in a New Yorker piece by
Anna Holmes on why Judy bloom books means so much
(35:55):
to her and to other girls in particular, and she
talks about how the depiction of adult women in the
books a lot of times are, as she describes it,
highly anxious, easily upset, overly protective and obsessed with outward appearances,
and she notes that perhaps Judy Bloom is also in
(36:18):
that process, really emphasizing this contrast between these earlier times
in our lives that we should appreciate when what's going
on inside of our heads feels like everything and we
have so many feelings and we're trying to sort it
out and every moment is the best or the worst
before you kind of transition into this time when there
(36:42):
is so much body focus and anxiety and just general womanhood. Yeah,
you know, there's so much more. There is such a
sense of freedom, um in a lot of her characters.
I think, well, yeah, and then the fact that, like,
while everything seems so big and heavy when it comes
(37:04):
to worrying about your period, worrying about you are you
going to grow boobs? Finally? Um, But then they get
to go run outside in the sprinkler, And so I
think there's something I just I just really loved reading
about these kids who like, uh, you don't have to
worry about taxes, yet you just have to worry about
filling out your bra and running through a sprinkler. I
(37:25):
missed that. I missed it, And you know what, I
was so jealous of was how she was able to
just walk over to Nancy Wheeler's house. It was just
like this. You know, neighborhoods were so different back then.
I mean, and we're talking about you know, the New
Jersey suburbs and you just let the kids out and yeah,
I just walk over to someone's house, bike over to
(37:47):
somebody's house. Um. That was something that I wish I
had had more of as a kid. But I also
I read that in other books too, and was always like, man,
that'd be cool. I want a neighborhood gang. Yeah. I
was part of a neighborhood gang. Ing of there were
four or five of us. It was. I grew up
next door to two boys, and then my my best
friend Ali was down the street with her sister, and
(38:08):
so I was I was the only child that sort
of floated between siblings. And we'd wander the neighborhood and
would you bike around, we'd bike around. We'd I get
my dogs to pull me on the skateboard of the
boy next door, yes, or because we've talked about on
our skateboarding episode. Um, yeah, and then play with makeup
and stuff with the girls. So yeah, I do it.
(38:29):
Was it was nice to think back to that time
of like sweaty summers as a kid, roaming from house
to house and basically having your parents just in the
air conditioning inside, not worried about it. So, Caroline, what's
your next Judy Bloom reread going to be? Well? I
I have to buy Blubber, and I have to buy Forever.
But literally, the next Judy Bloom book that is in
(38:52):
my bag right now is super Fudge, oh yeah, and
which she said was based on her son's or her
son one of the two. Yes, super Fudge was one
I remember my mom's citing as a reason why no
not okay? Well then I can't wait to read it.
I know, please please don't tell my mom. Uh, let
(39:14):
me just pass it, pass it to me by under
the under the cubicle or something. Yeah, so so my
mom won't find out. Um, the next book of hers,
I would like to read His Wife, Oh yeah, one
of her more adult novels, partially because the title intrigues me,
and also partially because I love a good story about
(39:37):
repressed housewives. I'm not gonna lie. We we just need
to have sort of an ongoing jitty blim book club.
It sounds like it sounds like someone listening is going
to organize that. I know if somebody to get on that.
I have a have a sminty fan book club going on. Well,
and speaking of listeners, of course, we want to hear
from you. We want all of your Judy Bloom thoughts.
(39:58):
Mom Stuff at how stuff works dot com is our
email address. You can also tweet us your favorite Judy
Bloom titles hashtag Judy Bloom. You can also message us
on Facebook, and in lieu of our typical listener mail segment,
We're going to share some of your Facebook comments about
(40:18):
Judy Bloom because they're just too good and too excited
not to. So these are responses to the question what
is your favorite Judy Bloom book? Serta Combs candidate said,
o MG starring Sally J. Freeman as herself is my
(40:42):
caps all time favorite book. Please please please read it.
You will freaking love it. And Serena, I'm so glad
to see your comment because I just realized that I
botched that title earlier in the podcast when I mentioned it,
So friends, please save your self an email. The correct
title I realized I'm correcting myself now is starring Sally J.
(41:05):
Freedman as herself, not Sally J. Freeman starring herself well.
Speaking of Fudge and Forever, Jennifer writes, I remember really
enjoying the Fudge books in third grade. In high school,
I found my mom's old copy of Forever with sticky
notes marking certain pages. I mentioned them to her, and
then the next time I picked up the book to
keep reading, they had mysteriously vanished. Michelle's Serenity Salas said,
(41:31):
Summer Sisters and Wifey read them both when I was
four eighteen, and I remember my lady parts feeling very
adult while reading these books in class. Amy Wheeler Colburn writes,
it's a tie between Tiger Eyes and Iggy's House. Those
books changed me so profoundly. I am positive I still
have them packed away somewhere, and I'm inspired to go
(41:53):
pull them out. Alicia Adams commented, I love everything this
woman ever penned. Truly how me through some of the
most difficult parts of my childhood. I can probably recite
at least the first chapter of Tales of fourth Grade
Nothing from Memory. Also, was I the only little black
kid who flipped when the show came out and Jimmy
(42:13):
Fargo was black. That made my entire week. Remember it
like it was yesterday. Kelsey and Romanoff rights Forever. It
taught me young relationships are hard for everyone and to
value myself. But it didn't have that don't have sex
or you will die vibe at least that I remember. No, Kelsey,
I think you're right. Bertha Collie said, it's somewhat ironic
(42:37):
that I'm at a loss for words when it comes
to Judy Bloom and what she meant to me when
I was a preteen and beyond God, I have tears
in my eyes even trying to think of what to
say right now. The only word that comes to mind
is gratitude. I'm so grateful for Judy Bloom. Marianne Boyer
hopping rights. Oh, I think I need to do some rereading.
(42:57):
Are you there? God? And Forever were faves of mine.
I remember being shocked that I was allowed to read
Forever and making sure my parents didn't find out what
was in it. And speaking of which Linda Allen commented,
Forever my mom called it porn. Well, listeners, we can't
wait to hear more from you about Judy Bloom and
(43:18):
why you think she is so beloved mom. Stuff at
how stuff works dot com is our email address and
for links to all of our social media as well
as all of our blogs, videos, and podcasts, including this
one with links for US sources. So you can learn
more about the life of Judy Bloom. Head on over
to stuff Mom Never Told You dot com for more
(43:42):
on this and thousands of other topics. Because it how
stuff works dot com.
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