•OLDER POST
I read "Blubber" many times as a kid and I felt very ambivalent. I kind of liked it—or at least wanted to like it. But it was weird to me that the protagonist was a villain of sorts, a relentless bully who gets her comeuppance. I also read many times but didn't quite bond with "It's Not The End of the World." Maybe it's because my parent's weren't divorced.
I also read "Then Again, Maybe I Won't" many times. (I was a read on repeat kind of kid, just as I'm a play on repeat person when it comes to music.) Still, the book always felt foreign to me because it's protagonist was a boy, one who REALLY liked girls. So I was interested in "Then Again, Maybe I Won't," but I didn't love it.
I read "Deenie" too, many times, but again, it felt weird to me. It was a book about a girl who was coming of age and having a nervous breakdown. Too close to home, perhaps.
My favorite Judy Blume books were "Are You There God," "It's Me, Margaret," "Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing" and "Super Fudge" and, most of all, the wistful Tiger Eyes.
Later, as an adult, I read, "Just As Long As We're Together," a later girls' book. I liked it quite a bit and it might have even made my top 5 list if I'd encountered it as a kid.
I read "Forever" in fourth or fifth grade and got some of the information wrong, because I didn't totally understand it. It's like the theme song for "The Facts of Life." "So you hear them from you brother, better clear it with your mother—better get it right. Call her late at night."
Then, I read "Summer Sisters" in a drunken book club as a young adult. I guess it brought out some of my purdery, because I found it rather cringeworthy.
Did you read Judy Blume as a kid?
—Sarah Torribio
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