Spotlight on Judy Blume--gURL.com

What are you working on now? What's next after Here's to You, Rachel Robinson?

I'm writing a novel. It's for my 20-somethings and my early 30-somethings. What I'm hoping is that everybody who grew up reading my books will read this one. It's about the friendship between two girls and it takes them from age 12 to 30. It's their entire sexual history from when they become active sexual beings at 12 to 25 when one of them gets married and then picks them up five years later, at thirty.

I haven't really dealt with same-sex attraction in my books up 'til now. But, actually, there is a little of that in the book I'm writing. I mean, I think everybody goes through same sex crushes and attractions.

I'm 25 and I couldn't believe that Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret was written in 1970. I believed it came out right when I was reading it.

People still think that. When I'm at a bookstore a lot of my first readers will come to see me and it's really sweet. They come clutching their early editions of whatever books they liked. You know, they'll just kind of lay a hand on my arm and we just look at each other and sometimes we both cry. But the 10-year-olds are like, What are they doing here? These books are for me!

What made you decide to write for adults?

I didn't write for adults for a long time. While I had this total recall for what it was like when I was young, I was also this woman, this very rebellious 37 year-old woman and I wanted to deal with this other life that I knew and so I wrote Wifey (1978).

And then I fell in love when I was 40ish and I wanted to write about that. So I wrote Smart Women and I've got a notebook filled with notes about another adult book that I hope I'll get to write one day.

What other creative outlets do you have?

I took up tap dancing late in life. For a couple of years when I was 45 until I was 48, I tap danced 6 days a week. I went to this wonderful class, which was all professionals and young hopefuls and a couple of people like me. Oh, there was this fantasy--my fantasy of being up on the stage in a Broadway musical.

Exercising, being physical, is important to me. It makes the creative juices flow and I need that in my life. I love my kayak. I can get away from everyone and everything and just paddle around thinking.

What are your personal experiences with censorship and how have you dealt with them?

I'm supposed to be one of the most censored authors in America so I've had a lot of experience with it. I work very closely with the National Coalition Against Censorship, which is a great group. I think it's always sad because it sends a negative message to kids that there's something wrong with puberty or something wrong with the stories themselves. It's the kids who lose out when frightened adults take these books away from them. I always think it's far better to let a kid read a book and then be there to talk to him or her about the book and the characters.

You know, these guys, these grown-ups on school boards, just don't get it. If they see a bad word (or what they think is a bad word), they perceive it in totally the wrong way. Instead of reading the book and thinking about being that age, about reacting to some emotional situation, they're always running in to save the child from reality--which of course isn't saving the child at all. It's saving the adults from having to answer their children's' questions. As a reader, when somebody takes away the books you want to read, you have to stand up and say, now wait a second!

In many cases, when books have been removed from a school or classroom library, then returned to the shelves, it's because young readers have made poignant speeches, explaining to the school board why the books are important to them. I think what needs to be done is that everybody who cares, regardless of how young you are, if you care about having the freedom to choose your own books, you have to become an activist. You can't just let things happen to you.

Some of Judy Blume's books:

Are You There God? It's Me Margaret

Forever

Blubber

Tales of A Fourth Grade Nothing

Otherwise Known As Sheila the Great

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