Judy Blume
Judy Blume is a prominent American author known for her influential works aimed at children, teenagers, and adults. She skillfully tackles complex subjects such as religion, divorce, social issues, and sexuality with humor and empathy, making her books resonate with a wide audience. Born in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Blume began her literary journey while raising her children, eventually finding success with popular titles like "Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret" and "Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing." Throughout her career, she has faced challenges related to censorship, becoming a vocal advocate for the freedom to read and opposing book banning. Blume's books have sold over eighty million copies and have been translated into thirty-one languages, establishing her as a significant figure in children's literature. In addition to her extensive bibliography, she has received numerous accolades, including the E.B. White Award for lifetime achievement. As of 2024, she resides in Key West, Florida, where she co-manages a nonprofit bookstore, continuing her commitment to literature and community engagement.
Subject Terms
Judy Blume
Author
- Born: February 12, 1938
- Place of Birth: Elizabeth, New Jersey
WRITER AND SOCIAL REFORMER
Blume has published books for all ages: children, young people, and adults. Her works treat in a humorous yet compassionate way such controversial subjects as religion, divorce, social exclusion, relocation, and sex. An activist for the freedom to read, Blume is an opponent of censorship and book banning.
AREA OF ACHIEVEMENT: Literature
Early Life
Judy Sussman Blume (blewm), the daughter of dentist Rudolph and Esther Sussman, grew up in a Jewish family that emphasized books and reading. When Blume was in the third grade, her family moved to Florida for two years in the hope that the climate would help her older brother’s health problems.
Blume took dance classes and excelled academically. At the all-girls Battin High School in Elizabeth, New Jersey, she sang in the chorus and was a features editor for the newspaper. After high school graduation, she enrolled in Boston University. When she contracted mononucleosis, however, she withdrew; she then enrolled in New York University (NYU) with a major in early childhood education.
During her junior year at NYU, she married attorney John M. Blume; they had their first child, Randy Lee (a daughter), shortly after Blume’s 1961 graduation. Their son, Lawrence Andrew, was born two years later.
While she cared for the house and children, Blume began to create, write, and illustrate stories for children. Publishers, however, issued her only rejection slips. Blume enrolled at NYU in a class on writing for children and young people. As assignments in this course, Judy developed the children’s book The One in the Middle Is the Green Kangaroo (1969) and her first draft of Iggie’s House (1970), a young adult book about a non-White family that moved into an all-White neighborhood. These two assignments became her first and second published books. More than twenty other books for children and young people would follow.
Life’s Work
Although she and her husband divorced in 1975, Blume continued to write as Judy Blume. Even after her 1976-1979 marriage to physicist Thomas A. Kitchens and her third marriage on June 6, 1987, to law professor and writer George Cooper, she retained the Blume name.
Her works were a refreshing departure from the predictable, simplistic literature of the time. Many of her books—like life itself—do not have a tidy ending. Blume’s writings remain popular. In addition to her work for adolescents and children, she has written three adult novels and three memoirs. Many of her volumes appear in translations; some are available in more than thirty languages. Her novels for adults include Wifey (1978), Smart Women (1984), and Summer Sisters (1998).
Religion—with particular emphasis on the Jewish faith—figures in many of her books, especially Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret (1970) and Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself (1977). The last received critical reviews because of the ten-year-old girl’s obsession with and mourning of the Nazi cruelties toward the Jews during the Holocaust.
Blume’s writings treated frankly such sensitive topics as religion and sex. Her Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret appeared on the Top One Hundred List of Banned Books from the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC); several of her other books made OCLC’s Top One Thousand List. To protest censorship, Blume joined the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC). In support, she produces posters, writes articles, speaks to groups, and encourages writers, teachers, and librarians facing criticism. All profits from her Places I Never Meant to Be: Original Stories by Censored Writers (2008) go to the NCAC.
Blume’s books have appeared in a variety of formats: paperback, hardcover, large print, video, filmstrip, plays, animated films, film adaptations, teacher guides, television productions, and audio—some read by Blume herself. Her Fudge books were adapted for a Saturday morning television series. A film version of Blume's Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret starring Abby Ryder Fortson and Rachel McAdams was released in 2023. Blume herself was also the subject of the documentary Judy Blume Forever during the same year.
Blume’s honors include receiving the Young Readers Choice Award from the American Library Association (1996), earning the Distinguished Alumna Award from New York University (1996), and accepting the Eleanor Roosevelt Humanitarian Award. In 2017, Blume received the American Academy of Arts and Letters' E.B. White Award in recognition of her lifetime achievement in children's literature. Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret became one of the all-time bestsellers in paperback; by the mid-1990’s it had sold some six million copies. Her Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing (1972), dealing with sibling rivalry, became the third-best-selling children’s book of all time; more than six million paperbacks were sold by the mid-1990s. Superfudge (1980) was her bestselling hardcover.
Significance
With her books having sold eighty million copies, translated into thirty-one languages, and available in many formats, Blume has remained a foremost writer for children and young people since 1969. Many of her more than twenty books treat such sensitive topics as sex and religion—especially her Jewish faith. While some groups have tried to ban or censor her works and those of other writers, Blume openly discourages censorship, remains an activist for the freedom to read, and encourages better communication among adults, children, and young people. Her more than ninety prestigious honors and awards attest to the enduring significance of Blume’s works. As of 2024, Blume lived in Key West with her husband, George Cooper. Together, they operated the nonprofit bookstore, Books & Books.
Bibliography
Blume, Judy. Letters to Judy: What Your Kids Wish They Could Tell You, a Kids Fund Project. New York: Putnam, 1986.
Jones, Jen. Judy Blume: Fearless Storyteller for Teens. Berkeley Heights, N.J.: Enslow, 2009.
"Judy Blume." IMDb, 2024, www.imdb.com/name/nm0089755. Accessed 25 Sept. 2024.
Larson, Sarah. "Judy Blume's Unfinished Endings." The New Yorker, 25 Apr. 2024, www.newyorker.com/culture/persons-of-interest/judy-blumes-unfinished-endings. Accessed 27 Sept. 2024.
Nault, Jennifer. Judy Blume. Mankato, Minn.: Weigl, 2003.
O’Connell, Jennifer, Meg Cabot, Beth Kendrick, and Julie Kenner. Everything I Needed to Know About Being a Girl I Learned from Judy Blume. New York: Pocket Books, 2009.
Telford, Cee. Judy Blume. New York: Rosen Central, 2004.