Never Too Old to Blume: A Celebration of Judy Blume
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Judy Blume rang in her 80th birthday in true literary style: celebrating at the nonprofit bookstore that she and her husband run in Key West. Blume is best known as an author for children and young adults, and her candid writing about topics like sex and menstruation made her work important to millions of readers.
Those topics also brought controversy. Several of her books (including Are You There, God, It's Me, Margaret, Blubber, and Then Again, Maybe I Won't) have been banned across the country, and Blume is among the authors whose work has been challenged most frequently in the 20th century. And that thrust her into the spotlight: Blume has long spoken out against censorship and defended intellectual freedom—and libraries.
Blume's work for children and teens has a timeless quality (if you've never experienced the joys of Tales of a Fourth-Grade Nothing or Forever, get thee to a library). But her work for adults is equally timeless, in a quiet way; she writes about relationships and emotional complexity with the same clarity and honesty she brings to her books for younger readers. If you've never read her work for adults, we've featured three of her novels below.
After all, you're never too old to Blume.
Wifey (1978)
Originally published in 1978 and reissued in 2005, this steamy story stars a New Jersey woman who throws off the shackles of her domestic life after a naked man on a motorcycle shows up.
Summer Sisters (1998)
Arguably just as apt for teens as well as adults, this coming-of-age story traces the complicated friendship between best friends, starting with their summers together on Martha's Vineyard and into their adulthood.
In the Unlikely Event(2015)
A fictionalized version of three real-life plane crashes in Elizabeth, NJ—Blume's hometown.
And, because we can't get enough of Blume's thoughts on censorship, libraries, and more, we've added three of our favorite quotes.
“I think of libraries as safe havens for intellectual freedom. I think of how many times I've been told about a librarian who saved a life by offering the right book at the right time.”
“I believe that censorship grows out of fear, and because fear is contagious, some parents are easily swayed. Book banning satisfies their need to feel in control of their children's lives. This fear is often disguised as moral outrage. They want to believe that if their children don't read about it, their children won't know about it. And if they don't know about it, it won't happen.”
“When I started, in the ‘70s, it was a good time for children's book writers. Children's reading was much freer than in the ‘80s when censorship started; when we elected Ronald Reagan and the conservatives decided that they would decide not just what their children would read but what all children would read, it went crazy. My feeling in the beginning was, wait, this is America: we don't have censorship, we have, you know, freedom to read, freedom to write, freedom of the press, we don't do this, we don't ban books. But then they did … [Sometimes] kids will actually go to mom or dad and say, ‘What does this mean?', which is the perfect time to talk to them about it. But that's when sometimes parents get hysterical. Really. It's like, ‘Argh, I don't want to talk to you about this, let's get rid of this book, I don't ever want to talk to you about this, I don't ever want you to go through puberty.'”
If you're craving more, read one librarian's meditation on what it meant to grow up with Blume's books and our Q&A with Judy Blume from 2002. And let us know your favorites in the comments!
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Adriana Gallina contributed to this post.
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Staff picks are chosen by NYPL staff members and are not intended to be comprehensive lists. We'd love to hear your ideas too, so leave a comment and tell us what you'd recommend. And check out our Staff Picks browse tool for more recommendations!