{"id":1139,"date":"2018-03-15T08:00:56","date_gmt":"2018-03-15T13:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/websites.emerson.edu\/undergrad-students-publishing\/?p=1139"},"modified":"2018-03-15T08:00:56","modified_gmt":"2018-03-15T13:00:56","slug":"the-power-of-judy-blume","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/undergraduate-students-publishing\/2018\/03\/15\/the-power-of-judy-blume\/","title":{"rendered":"The Power of Judy Blume"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kyle Labe\/\/Blog Writer<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Whenever Judy Blume is mentioned in conversation, there seems to be simultaneous nostalgia. Blume inspires an almost ubiquitous adoration, everyone having grown up with her novels, from <\/span>Are You There God? It\u2019s Me, Margaret<\/span><\/i>, to <\/span>Forever\u2026<\/span><\/i>, to <\/span>Blubber<\/span><\/i> and the <\/span>Fudge <\/span><\/i>series. Very rarely is there an author so universally loved. There is a certain power to being Judy Blume.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
Forever…<\/em> by Judy Blume<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>I find it so peculiar that a children\u2019s writer is also one of the most banned authors in America. But that\u2019s because Blume never shies away from putting to words the most intimate aspects of maturation. In her books, Blume has tackled puberty, menstruation, masturbation, sexual orientation, teen sexuality, virginity, grief, religion, racism, class, bullying, and more. <\/span><\/p>\n

There are so many questions when one is an adolescent, but they all seems to circulate around one, overarching uncertainty: am I doing this right? When you\u2019re growing up, it seems that everyone around you is so separate and distant from your problems. You have no real grasp on what\u2019s happening, because so many things are going on at once, and you can\u2019t seem to grab a hold onto any of it. There are resources, but truthfully, I, for one, preferred to bottle up my emotions rather than confer with my parents, and I also recognize that many people do not have the same stable relationship that my parents and I share. Schools, more often than not, fail in areas such as sex education, counseling, and bullying.<\/span><\/p>\n

Blume knows this. In an appropriately-titled <\/span>New York Times<\/span><\/i> profile, \u201c<\/span>Judy Blume Knows All Your Secrets<\/span><\/a>,\u201d Blume recognizes that before she is a writer, she is a storyteller. Throughout the years, she never has lost touch with her audience. There is a comfort to reading, and in my case, rereading, Blume. She acknowledges questions that many children and young adults are too nervous in voicing, and approaches them in a method that is neither judgmental nor condescending.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret<\/em> by Judy Blume<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Personally, my favorite Blume novel is the YA classic <\/span>Forever\u2026<\/span><\/i>. <\/span>Forever\u2026<\/span><\/i> is one of those magical books in that whatever point in my life I read it, I come out of it with something new. Not many things can cause me to say the same thing. At the outset, <\/span>Forever\u2026<\/span><\/i> tells the story of a teenager dealing with the pressures of sex and first times, but there is so much more. There is the anxiety of leaving your previous lifestyle for a new one at college, and the reality behind first loves and first heartbreaks. It addresses teen pregnancy, birth control, and the question of abortion, and it explicitly confronts Planned Parenthood in a positive light. One of the most confusing variables of adolescence is the question of sex, yet Blume spins it all in here as if some Bible. It also contains one of my favorite quotes in literature: \u201cIt\u2019s strange, but when it comes right down to it I never do fall apart\u2014even when I\u2019m sure I will.\u201d That, in my opinion, encapsulates the novel as a whole, and what being a teenager feels like.<\/span><\/p>\n

So many children\u2019s and young adult books become disenchanting with age. Revisiting beloved stories, but now with experience you lacked as a kid, can sometimes be disheartening, as you discover flaws and holes you never noticed as a child. Viewing these stories critically can even prove more of a challenge. But I\u2019ve never had that problem with Blume. There is never a new lesson in her books that can\u2019t be found every time around. So what if <\/span>Are You There God? It\u2019s Me, Margaret<\/span><\/i> concerns itself with the inner thoughts of a young girl? Issues of anti-semitism, religious identity, and insecurity don\u2019t just leave, unfortunately. Blume\u2019s books are remarkable for their ability to transport a reader back in time to their childhood, while concurrently retaining a relatability for any age. I remember when I reread <\/span>Are You There God? It\u2019s Me, Margaret<\/span><\/i> last year, I was particularly struck by a passage in which the eponymous narrator\u2019s mother sends her off traveling, yet warns her to only ask a woman if she needs help. It\u2019s nothing more than half a page, but minuscule details such as these strike me now, when I don\u2019t believe I would\u2019ve noticed it back in junior high.<\/span><\/p>\n

So yes, there is a power to Judy Blume. I, like most of American youth nowadays, owe a debt of gratitude to Blume for narrating our childhood with both candor and wit. While growing up can be one of the most isolating experiences in a person\u2019s life, it\u2019s nice to know future generations will never be alone as long as Blume\u2019s novels stay in print.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kyle Labe\/\/Blog Writer \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Whenever Judy Blume is mentioned in conversation, there seems to be simultaneous nostalgia. Blume inspires an almost ubiquitous adoration, everyone having grown up with her novels,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16,6,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-author-bios","category-opinion","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/undergraduate-students-publishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/undergraduate-students-publishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/undergraduate-students-publishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/undergraduate-students-publishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/62"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/undergraduate-students-publishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/undergraduate-students-publishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1139\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/undergraduate-students-publishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/undergraduate-students-publishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/undergraduate-students-publishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}