Judy Blume Forever

Okay.

"We're starting a new program in gym.

"Mrs. Rappoport asked us each to write down a question,

"especially anything we need to know about sex.

"'Well, ' Mrs. Rappoport said,

"'does anyone here know the word for stimulating our genitals?'

"It got very quiet in the gym.

"Then one girl spoke.

"'I think it's called masturbation.'

"'That's right, ' Mrs. Rappoport told us.

"'And it's not a word you should be afraid of.

"Let's all say it.'

"'Masturbation, ' we said together.

"I never knew there was a name for what I do.

"I just thought it was my own special, good feeling.

Now I wonder if all my friends do it, too."

Let's raise our hands if we masturbate, everybody.

Oh, Judy.

Uh, do you know who Judy Blume is?

- Carol. - Who is Judy Blume?

She is America's most popular writer of children's books.

If you've ever read Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret

or Blubber or Superfudge ...

The one and only Judy Blume, everybody.

You've sold more than 80 million books...

Her 20 or so coming-of-age novels

often address sensitive issues.

I feel like the Pied Piper.

Everything that I learned

about sex or thinking about sex or crushes,

I learned from Judy.

Judy Blume! Oh, I own all your books.

It was like a look into a secret world.

I felt like someone was being honest.

That's a gift. That's magic.

Judy's books speak about the unspeakable.

It's the reason that her books were so complicated for people.

She is called the most censored writer of children's books.

A book cannot harm a child.

Any time I say your name, I have to say the whole name... Judy Blume.

That's what the kids call me.

- Do they really? - "Hey. Hey, Judy Blume."

You know, I call it petting the books.

When I come in every morning, I go through it,

and I make sure that they're all lined up pretty.

How to cook with weed.

People love this section.

Is Judy in the store?

She is.

Um, I would sneak by, I think, by 2:00.

Okay. Well, she's here now.

Absolutely. See you soon.

Okay.

- You live here? - Uh-huh.

Me, too.

I just have to tell you, your books ignited such a love of reading in me.

You just made such a huge impact on me.

- Are you Judy Blume? - Hi.

- I am. - Oh, my God.

Those books were, like, my teenage years.

Fudge, Superfudge. All those books, man, we loved 'em.

That is awesome I got to meet Judy Blume. Thank you.

When I started to write, I...

only identified with kids.

Not with adults.

In your books, you generally write in the first person

from the point of view of a young person... of a young girl, usually.

I have done that in many of my books.

Do you have a connection

with your own adolescence, with your own childhood?

Some adults forget their childhood.

Do you still have a connection?

Oh, yes. I have total recall.

- You have total recall? - I mean, it sounds silly, but I...

I have total recall from third grade on.

Everything.

You can remember incidents, specific incidents

- that happened to you in grammar school? - I...

I can put myself back there.

I know exactly how I felt.

I know what I was thinking. Yes.

I didn't grow up thinking, "I'm going to be a writer."

But I always had stories inside my head.

I grew up in Elizabeth, New Jersey.

I was seven years old when World War II ended in 1945.

If you went to the movie theater, you saw newsreels.

I knew about this thing

that I really didn't understand.

My brother David was four years older than me.

My mother would tell us the war happened

very far away and it's not coming here and we're safe.

Did I believe that? I don't know.

I mean, I was a Jewish girl,

and this happened because you were a Jew.

I was an anxious child.

I felt adults kept secrets from the kids.

I hated those secrets.

I-I think I had to make up what those secrets were.

That fueled my imagination.

"'Let's play Love and Romance today, ' Alice said.

"'Let's play War instead, ' Sally suggested.

"'Oh, I'm sick of playing War, ' Alice said.

"'I always wind up being Hitler!'

"'Well, you can't expect me to be Hitler, ' Sally said.

"'I'm Jewish.'

"'But if you don't want to play War I have another idea...

"'We can play Concentration Camp instead.

And nobody has to be Hitler because he is away on business.'"

I created characters.

I like making up backstories for them.

I like knowing who they were.

Of course, they didn't exist, except in my imagination.

My mother was always reading.

She took me to the library every week when I was very, very small.

Madeline...

All these wonderful Madeline books.

My mother, she let me sit on the floor and pull books out

and look at them and sniff them.

I love to sniff books. I still do.

And my mother, who worried about everything... everything...

didn't seem to worry about what I was reading.

But we could never talk about anything.

I knew never to ask her personal questions.

I knew I wasn't gonna get an answer.

My father was the nurturer.

He cut the toenails.

He took our temperatures if we were sick.

I adored my father.

He tried to raise me to want an adventurous life

and to be adventurous and to take chances.

My father was the youngest of seven siblings.

None of the seven siblings lived to be 60.

I worried terribly that he would die young.

And I had to pray so hard with my little prayers

and make so many bargains with God to protect him.

What a burden to feel that you're this little kid and you have to...

it's up to you to keep your beloved father safe.

As I got older, I never really confided

the things that were deep down inside.

Well, how do you like it?

There's only one word for it: terrific.

The '50s was just...

so much was about pretend.

Pretend we're happy when we're not.

Pretend everything is great when it isn't.

If there was one thing my mother said to me always, it was:

"Be a good girl, Judy."

She was a good girl.

She was very cute, very pretty.

Had beautiful clothes.

She was very thin.

We met in the seventh grade.

There was a great group of girls in that class.

We talked endlessly about everything,

and we're still best friends today.

Look at that.

This is Joanne and Judy and Mary.

Oh, my God, look how young we were.

- So, in ninth grade... - Yes, Fred.

...we were both in love briefly with the same boy.

We used to talk on the phone after we went out with him

and say how many kisses, how many times.

Yes, that's what we did.

Yes. I mean, he got us hot at a very early age, I think.

That's what I think. Me anyway.

I don't know about you, but...

'Cause I was such a fucking prude, I guess.

We were not that sweet, but we... nobody knew.

I was a good girl with a bad girl lurking just inside.

But I knew what was expected of me.

Go to college, get your degree in education

in case you ever need a job... God forbid you ever have to work...

and while you're in college

is when you have to find the boy you're going to marry.

I went to NYU.

I did meet my husband

when I was a sophomore.

I didn't know who I was or what I wanted,

and he was already a lawyer.

I thought that was... so exciting.

I mean, you know, I was marrying a grown-up.

And I was gonna be a grown-up, too.

I even bought a girdle to prove it.

A mint green girdle. Mm-hmm.

But we got married under

very difficult circumstances that changed my whole life.

My father had a sudden, massive heart attack,

and he died.

I was married five weeks after my father's death.

It was a terrible way to start a marriage.

I couldn't really grieve because I married a man

who, like my mother, never talked about feelings.

So, by the time I started to write, I really had a lot to get out.

In the '60s, I was living on a cul-de-sac in New Jersey,

and I don't think any woman on that cul-de-sac worked.

We all had babies.

And I liked having babies.

I had two children.

But I think, from the time I got married, I never felt that I fit in.

I played at being a married lady.