back to school with judy blume: an intro

Along with my continued recapping of Face Off (though, LORD, what wretched work are they) I decided to assign myself another project for September.

In early August, I sleepily rolled over to Crystal and said, “I need you to find me two really specific copies of books, okay?” and she said, “… O… kay?” and I proceeded to describe, in detail, Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret. and Deenie but in their late 70s printings. “It’s purple with like, a very blonde windswept girl on the cover… and the other one… She’s standing in front of an oval mirror and there’s like… some dark yellow.” I was sleepy, but the descriptions were accurate and within two days they were winging their way through the mail to us from Oopsee Daisies on Etsy. Along with a bunch of other vintage kid lit because neither Crystal nor I can control ourselves when it comes to books.

We ended up with a nice lot of eight Judy Blume books — four for younger readers and four for the young adult crowd — and since I’d only read two of them growing up (my reading tastes were all over the place as a kid but I was VERY anti-girl and thus missed out on a lot of good and important things — internalized misogyny! WHAT A BITCH) I thought I’d spend my September with Ms. Blume.

Back to School with Judy Blume is supposed to be about my ~emotional education~ I think. Or, at the very least, reliving two books that were really important to me in my formative years. I can’t even imagine the number of times I’ve read Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret. or recount how important a gift Deenie was to me when a friend gave it to me in sixth grade. She had scoliosis! Like Deenie! And I think her mom probably Yahoo-searched books about scoliosis and gave it to her! But her sharing it with me was like an olive branch of friendship I never expected. Now she’s married and has a beautiful little girl! Getting old is really weird! I don’t recommend it!

I’m reading them in chronological order of their publication which worked out pretty well because I get a kid lit and a YA each week. This seems promising?

Eight books in four weeks is not a particular challenge for someone who is unemployed and a relatively fast reader, but the writing about them will be my challenge. REMEMBER HOW BEHIND I GOT WITH FESTIVE-ASS FLICKS LAST YEAR?! I CAN’T LIVE LIKE THAT AGAIN.

I’m going to write about each book, but what I’m REALLY hoping for is some glorious angels-descending-from-heaven glowing ball of light idea that ties them all together and give me something really interesting to talk about at the end. Something about the how much we grow and how much we stay the same? Or about the power of childhood memory? Or how adulthood is stupid? Here’s hoping!

Read along at home, if you got ’em!

related:

back to school with judy blume: tiger eyes back to school with judy blume: are you there, god? it’s me, margaret. back to school with judy blume: otherwise known as sheila the great