Entertainment Weekly columnist (and Oscar-winning screenwriter) Diablo Cody recently wrote a fantastic piece on a beloved author from our childhood: Judy Blume.
Of Blume's tween-aged and teenaged heroines, Cody wrote:
". . . [T]hese stories belong to young women. Real young women, not singing Disney cheerleaders, hair-flipping pop stars, or cartoonish socialites. 'Judy's girls' are imperfect and unsure; they tend to vacillate maddeningly between outspokenness and passivity. Even physically beautiful characters (like the protagonist in Deenie) are outcasts somehow, stymied by the expectations of others. It's definitely not the stuff of Hollywood."
On the EW blog, another writer mused about her favorite Judy Blume moments and invited readers to do the same. (Lots of comments there.)
In fact, I just used an anecdote from Are You There God? It's Me Margaret while talking to my 10-year-old daughter the other night about the changes that are happening to many of the girls with whom she rides the bus. (Her bus has students in grades ranging from 4th through 8th.) She also wanted to know about why some of her classmates are now wearing bras, even though they don't need them yet. Of course this segued into my memories of how reading the book prompted my gal pals and I to ask our moms to buy us "training bras."
Soon I think it will be a good idea to re-read the golden oldies of my youth so I can remember what it's like to be a girl again. I can't wait to read Sally J. Freedman As Herself for the 47th time.
Of Blume's tween-aged and teenaged heroines, Cody wrote:
". . . [T]hese stories belong to young women. Real young women, not singing Disney cheerleaders, hair-flipping pop stars, or cartoonish socialites. 'Judy's girls' are imperfect and unsure; they tend to vacillate maddeningly between outspokenness and passivity. Even physically beautiful characters (like the protagonist in Deenie) are outcasts somehow, stymied by the expectations of others. It's definitely not the stuff of Hollywood."
On the EW blog, another writer mused about her favorite Judy Blume moments and invited readers to do the same. (Lots of comments there.)
In fact, I just used an anecdote from Are You There God? It's Me Margaret while talking to my 10-year-old daughter the other night about the changes that are happening to many of the girls with whom she rides the bus. (Her bus has students in grades ranging from 4th through 8th.) She also wanted to know about why some of her classmates are now wearing bras, even though they don't need them yet. Of course this segued into my memories of how reading the book prompted my gal pals and I to ask our moms to buy us "training bras."
Soon I think it will be a good idea to re-read the golden oldies of my youth so I can remember what it's like to be a girl again. I can't wait to read Sally J. Freedman As Herself for the 47th time.
Image credit: Time Magazine.
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