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