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How Two Famous Judy Blume Books Taught Me Lessons

Judy Blume is finally getting the respect she deserves. A documentary. Not to mention a big movie adaptation of Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret?…

Judy Blume Signing Books in 2019. (Source: Wikimedia Commons; Photo by Carl Lender.)

As Douglas Laman asks for Collider, what took them so long?

Some of us used Judy Blume books to help us stumble our way through childhood and adolescence. I learned more from her books than from the so-called “health” classes we got. Not just about menstruation but also faith and life and making mistakes.

Maybe that’s why people still want to ban her books. In fact, in a recent interview, Judy Blume said that book bans in the United States are worse now than they were decades ago. She also brought this up at Variety’s Power of Women luncheon.

Speaking of periods (we weren’t, but you know we’re going to get there)… There’s even a ridiculous Florida bill designed to ban discussion of menstruation in schools before sixth grade. I started menstruating before sixth grade. Would these politicians have put duct tape on my mouth?

I’m not alone. While the “average” first period comes at age 12, they can start as early as age 8. Politicians have to stop this nonsense. Encouraging ignorance about natural bodily functions is dangerous.

“Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret”

Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret (let’s call it AYTGIMM) is the first Judy Blume book I read. I remember checking AYTGIMM out of the school library. Twice. Sort of.

The first time, I thought it was a mistake. Why? Because after checking it out, I realized there was a sticker on it that said the book was restricted to older students. Had the librarian made a mistake letting me take it? Why were the other girls giggling? Certain I was going to get in trouble for reading something “bad,” I brought it back.

Wasn’t that silly of me? (Wasn’t it sillier that girls giggled at me?) Luckily, later, I changed my mind and checked it out again. (Keep in mind that this is a middle-grade book, not a young adult novel, so banning it from the hands of fourth graders was a bit much.)

I’m so glad I decided to read it after all. Not long after I read the book, I had my first period. While it wasn’t exactly like the periods described in the book, the book helped me know what I was facing.

That’s the problem with keeping books (and knowledge) like this from young girls. You don’t know when they will get their first period. You don’t know if they’re getting the wrong information from friends and family members. A book like AYTGIMM can teach kids about what their bodies are going through or will go through.

But it’s more than just “that period book.”

It’s a coming-of-age story. Like all of us, Margaret makes some bad decisions at times. She learns from them. She still isn’t perfect, and that’s great!

Also, before this book, I had never read about a girl growing up in a household with one Jewish parent and one Christian parent. Let alone one where the daughter is allowed to question her faith. It’s one of the first books I read that explored both Judaism and Christianity on equal terms.

Maybe that’s another reason people want to ban it…

“Then Again, Maybe I Won’t”

Then Again, Maybe I Won’t (let’s call it TAMIW) is the Judy Blume book I read next. That’s fitting because, as I recently learned, TAMIW was a follow-up to AYTGIMM. After writing AYTGIMM, Judy Blume decided to write about a boy going through puberty.

This one wasn’t as famous to kids I knew. But boy, it was just as educational. Through this book, through the main character Tony, I learned that boys had wet dreams. (I learned the term “nocturnal emissions.”) But just as AYTGIMM is more than a book about periods, TAMIW is way more than a book about wet dreams.

It’s also about a young man from a blue-collar family uprooted to a nicer neighborhood when his father does well. About the conflicts and stresses stemming from the lifestyle change. About peer pressure to do things like drinking, shoplifting, and making prank calls. Yes, it’s also about fighting (or not fighting) the urge to be a voyeur.

It’s also about the way some people (such as Tony’s mother) get caught up in their new social status, so much so that they hurt their loved ones. So Tony’s mother was guided by peer pressure, too. Tony is far from perfect, and that made him relatable.

Long after I read this book, I remembered a scene where Tony went to a malt shop with his well-to-do friends. They put the waitress’s tip (40 pennies!) inside a milkshake glass so that she would be forced to dig it out of the unfinished goop. When she confronted them, pointing out that she needed that crappy tip to buy food, that shamed the boys. It also made Tony think.

A Side Note About Sex Education

I went to Catholic school in the 1970s. One year, we had what passed for a sex education class. As far as I remember, it took place over a single day or two. On top of that, they split the class into two groups: boys and girls. They didn’t even let us stay in the same room for the class.

I thought this was a 1970s Catholic school thing. But this still happens today. Boys and girls often get different sex education classes. The classes they get are often useless. This is why you end up with people who are ignorant about periods — such as men who think women can just “turn off” their periods. As Monica Hesse pointed out, Ignorance about the female body hurts us all.

Call me crazy, but I think boys should learn what girls and women go through. And girls should learn what boys go through. Ignorance makes us vulnerable. Ignorant people make terrible laws.

Additional Sources

Judy Blume on the Web (the official website of the author)

The Official Website for the Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret movie

The Sundance Film Festival Page for Judy Blume Forever

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