Judy Blume: Classic or Dud?

1. When I was in 4th grade, I helped tally a poll about the student body's favorite authors, and Beverly Cleary edged out Judy Blume, much to my surprise.

2. Does Blume's stuff "hold up" now? I mean, would it strike the modern kid as being hopelessly dated, or rather useful?

Mind you her books were filthy enough being full of Dicks and Fanny's...

blume (and paula danziger to a degree) was really pretty dark, especially in blubber and then again, maybe i won't, and there was never much resolution to her stories.

Also, who wrote the SUPERFUDGE books? Was that Beverly Cleary?

i think cleary wrote superfudge (and RAMONA!).

Yeah, I found that part utterly baffling when I read it in middle school.

Based on Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing alone, I think Judy Blume is classic. But many of her other books are great as well. Blubber was so good at capturing how cruel and sadistic girls can be. She also wrote Superfudge.

Paula Danziger is fantastic too, I was very sad when I found out she passed away earlier this summer.

She lives in Florida too. What I think is cool is that she paid for the YA room at the library here on the island so that you can actually read Judy Blume books in the Judy Blume YA Room!! How awesome is that? And all geniuses are mean sometimes, Maria.

Forever went around the 5th grade and was a bit of a gateway drug for VC Andrews. And the general consensus among 6th grade literati was that Wifey sucked; we had all moved on to Carrie. Perverts, the lot of us, eh?

my friend wrote this

http://www.brokenpencil.com/excerpts/excerpt.php?excerptid=69

on the topic.

From the woman herself

Yes, Tiger Eyes fans - looks as if filming will happen sometime this fall. Any ideas for casting Davey (16-17) appreciated.

Spotted this in a bookstore. Can't really decide if this particular attempt to market it towards Kids Today is obnoxious or clever.

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/417aglZcY4L._SX332_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

It's a clever concept but they didn't really follow through with it since the title font doesn't look like a text message font.

are you there, god? it's me, harold, with the purple crayon.

I would argue not clever because the concept isn't very well executed and also because allusions to texting on the cover of a book written in the '70s is basically a non sequitur.

Loved these books, but was more of a Cleary dude

famously resistant to film deals, til now

https://deadline.com/2018/10/judy-blume-movie-are-you-there-god-its-me-margaret-james-l-brooks-kelly-fremon-craig-the-edge-of-seventeen-1202482634/

there was this one in 2012, which I know nothing about

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1748260/

There was a Fudge tv show/movie back in the '90s, iirc.

Forever was done as a TV movie back in the 70s.

Actually reading Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing with my 3/4 class right now.

The Young Adult literature class I'm assisting with this term just did Forever. They seemed to find it super cringey (which I get, even though I like the novel).

Woo hoo- on the set of the Margaret movie. So exciting! ⁦@Lionsgate⁩ #ItsMeMargaret pic.twitter.com/eY4kXXKQx2

— Judy Blume (@judyblume) April 19, 2021

This in WaPo today: https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/judy-blume-in-2021-reading-her-books-again-today-do-they-resonate-or-offend/2021/04/17/9734d9f6-9c98-11eb-b7a8-014b14aeb9e4_story.html

i didnt know they were making a Margaret movie - intetesting!

https://www.nytimes.com/article/best-judy-blume-books.html

arg i’m paywalled - can someone help a veg out

Might also be paywalled but a great read

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/07/business/media/judy-blume-hollywood.html

The Guardian really likes the new "Margaret" movie... kinda want to check it out

Hopefully will lead to film version of Then Again, Maybe I Won't

Personally I was always weirded out by how excited Margaret and her friends were about getting their periods. I identified much more with the reactions of the characters in Louise Fitzhugh's The Long Secret, where they're all just kind of outraged and depressed about having to do this every month.

I don't want to overhype because it really is a very modest film, but the Margaret praise across the board is very much merited

I got into the Superfudge books as a kid and started reading all the Blume I could find. Girls snickered at me because they saw me reading Are You There God…. I also read Forever, Blubber, the Ramona books, Shiela the Great. I started really enjoying books with female protagonists. I remember picking out books for the Troll book club and telling my mom what I wanted. There was one about a president’s daughter (Lincoln? I can’t remember) and my mom raised her eyebrow and suggested something else. It made me really self conscious that I had gone too far into liking girly things.

Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack! was a good one too (from that era)

looking forward to the movie
need to watch the Prime documentary too

I watched that last week. Didn't know a lot about her, although I did Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing as a grade 4-6 novel study a few times. The turtle scene was always a big hit.

xp there was a book called The President's Daughter by Ellen Emerson White that I got from the Scholastic book club. it was actually really good!

Scholastic Book club! That brings me back... you could get books for like 65 cents, delivered to class. I think I still have my copy of Elizabeth Enright's Gone-Away Lake that I got through them, probably read it ten times as a kid

Xp no, it wasn’t that. I think it was about an old timey founding father’s kid or something. I had forgotten all about this until today, and now i’m mad at my mom again.

This is pretty good, just as much a history of YA and a write-up of its politics.

https://thepointmag.com/criticism/the-age-of-adolescence/