Judy blume childhood biography of george

Judy Blume has never forgotten what it's like to be a child.

She is especially adept at conjuring that tricky time between 10 and 16, when children are hit by so much change. Think back to when you went through it. Your body seems foreign and unpredictable. Your mind starts questioning everything, and your heart doesn't know what it wants. Sometimes, you just want to play with your friends and hug your parents, and then the next day, you want to run away and be on your own and never see any of these people ever again.

As the groundbreaking author of "Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret," "Then Again, Maybe I Won't," "Blubber," "Iggie's House," "It's Not The End Of The World," "Tales Of A Fourth-Grade Nothing" and many others, Judy Blume understands. She has a wide, warm smile that you can see on the book jackets.

Preparing for this interview, I kept thinking of myself at 12, reading and re-reading those books. Blume hears from fans all the time. There's no compliment I could offer that would not be cliched or awkward. But 12-year-old me would never forgive grown-up me if I passed up the chance to say, "Thank you," to Judy Blume.

So I do. Gushing, I tell Blume that I'm about to hand down my inky, yellowing, wrinkled paperback edition of "Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret" to my own daughter.

Need a break?Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.

"I wouldn't do that," Blume says.

No?

"I wouldn't give her your copy, and don't tell her it was your favorite book because kids that age might balk at that," Blume says. "If you can, get her her own copy and let it lie around, and say, 'You might want to read this, I don't know.' "

Wise counsel. The medium is the message, after all. I'll get my daughter a less vintage version of "Are You There," and I'll give it a soft sell.

Meanwhile, maybe I'll bring my inky-yellowing book to Blume's appearance at Grounds For Sculpture on Oct. 5, and ask her to sign it.

Prologue

At the start of the 1950s, in the suburbs of Elizabeth, N.J., a nearly teenage Judy Blume found herself at odds with the rhythms of her body.

She hadn’t inherited her Aunt Gert’s large breasts. (“My mother worried terribly that I would take after my father’s sister, who had to have bras made to fit her,” says Judy, now 85. “I always say she worried them right off me!”)

And she hadn’t yet started her period. (“I wanted it so desperately. But when I finally got it, I couldn’t tell anybody, because I had told them I had gotten it in the sixth grade!”)

She had discovered the joys of self-stimulation, but she was suffering from a lack of privacy. (“When I went to summer camp, it was like, ‘How am I gonna get through eight weeks here and never touch my special place?’”)

There were consolations along the way. Her friends had bigger chests than hers, sure, but they were kind and honest, and all just as keen as she was to discuss things like masturbation, even if they hadn’t learned the word yet. And her monthly bleeds did eventually come. But more on that later.

Chapter 1

In the courtyard café of Books & Books, a long-standing indie shop in Miami, a bespectacled man takes notice as I scrawl some last-minute thoughts in my notebook. “Are you writing the next great American novel?” he asks.

“No, but I’m here to meet someone who already has,” I tell him. The man — who introduces himself as Mitchell Kaplan, the owner of the store — knows who I mean. He knows Judy well, as she and George Cooper, her husband of 43 years, run a Books & Books store near their home in Key West.

Judy sees me before I see her. Having been given a mission by her publicists to find the reporter in the yellow dress, she

American author (born 1938)

Judith Blume (néeSussman; born February 12, 1938) is an American writer of children's, young adult, and adult fiction. Blume began writing in 1959 and has published more than 26 novels. Among her best-known works are Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. (1970), Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing (1972), Deenie (1973), and Blubber (1974). Blume's books have significantly contributed to children's and young adult literature. She was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine in 2023.

Blume was born and raised in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and graduated from New York University in 1961. As an attempt to entertain herself in her role as a homemaker, Blume began writing stories. Blume was one of the first young adult authors to write novels focused on such controversial topics as masturbation, menstruation, teen sex, birth control, and death. Her novels have sold over 82 million copies and have been translated into 32 languages.

Blume has won many awards for her writing, including the American Library Association (ALA)'s Margaret A. Edwards Award in 1996 for her contributions to young adult literature. She was recognized as a Library of Congress Living Legend and awarded the 2004 National Book Foundation medal for distinguished contribution to American letters.

Blume's novels are popular and widely admired. They are praised for teaching children and young adults about their bodies. However, the mature topics in Blume's books have generated criticism and controversy. The ALA has named Blume as one of the most frequently challenged authors of the 21st century. There have been several film adaptations of Blume's novels, i

(1938-)

Who Is Judy Blume?

Author Judy Blume began her writing career in the 1960s. She found success with the 1970 coming-of-age story Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret, and cemented her popularity among young readers with Blubber (1974) and Forever... (1975). A proponent of intellectual freedom, Blume has also penned such books as Wifey (1978) and In the Unlikely Event (2015) for adult audiences.

Early Years

Judy Blume was born Judith Sussman on February 12, 1938, in Elizabeth, New Jersey. The second child of Esther, a homemaker, and Rudolph, a dentist, Blume was given the chance to expend her creative energies through an array of activities that included piano and dance lessons. She especially enjoyed reading and constantly made up stories in her head.

After attending the all-girls' Battin High School, Blume was forced to leave Boston University after just two weeks upon contracting mononucleosis. She resumed her education at New York University, during which time she met lawyer John Blume. They were married shortly after the death of her father in 1959, and she graduated with a B.S. in education in 1961.

Famous Books

Having given birth to two children, daughter Randy and son Lawrence, by age 25, Blume sought to satisfy her creative urges by taking a writing course at NYU. Following years of rejections, she became a first-time author when her illustrated children's book The One in the Middle Is the Green Kangaroo was published in 1969. Blume followed with her first novel, Iggie's House (1970), about an African American family that moves into a white neighborhood.

It was Blume's following book, Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret (1970), that firmly established her as a leading voice for younger readers. Focusing on a girl who wonders about the pending arrival of her period and her parents' competing faiths, Blume deftly tapped into her experiences from pre-adolescence to deliver an endearing, honest coming-of-a