From the outside, her life seemed a model of conventionality and security, but she remembers knowing, even as a child, that there was more going on than adults would acknowledge in her presence.Ī night at the movies in her childhood (Blume was born in 1938) included newsreels as well as a feature film. Nothing in Blume’s early years suggests she would be a revolutionary-she grew up in a middle-class, culturally Jewish household in Elizabeth, NJ, graduated from NYU with a degree in education, got married and settled down to the work of raising a family in the suburbs. And still is today, apparently, judging by the frequency with which Blume’s books appear on challenged and banned lists. This approach sounds so simple, and yet it was positively revolutionary when her books began appearing in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Blume writes from the point of view of her young protagonists, not from that of an adult who filters the characters’ thoughts and behaviors through an adult lens of what is proper and appropriate. This revelation helps explain why her books resonate so deeply with young readers, and also why some adults think they’re dangerous and disgusting and want to keep them away from their target audience. Early in Judy Blume Forever, Davina Pardo and Leah Wolchok’s documentary about the noted and often-banned author, Blume shares what may be the key secret of her success-she has total recall of her childhood from third grade onwards.
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