I am posting this at midnight, because like a good lit geek, I am getting up early to go to the Texas Book Festival and plan to be there until I get to catch a glimpse of Behemoth's wife, who is on a panel tomorrow afternoon.
Judy Blume: universally loved, daring, banned warrior of menstruating preteens everywhere. It was Judy Blume who put this whole novel-writing business into my head when I was eight years old. Thanks, Judy. I wrote you a letter about being tall and having to play boys parts in school plays and suggested that as a topic for a novel. That was probably the last author fan letter I wrote, but YOU WROTE BACK! How very nice! My mom kept the letter in her safe deposit box for years and years. Judy, I still play boys parts in plays, only this time it's under the auspices of an all-female improvised musical troupe. Sort of like Shakespeare in reverse, with singing.
Last week at work, my fellow female coworkers in their 30s had a huge talk about Judy B., especially the racy virginity-loss novel Forever. OMG. Heroine Katherine loses her virginity on the bathroom floor to her boyfriend Michael and there's a condom talk and a few spots of blood. And then she goes to summer camp and meets another boy and questions her commitment to Michael. Teen sex! I read that book when I was, like, eleven. I attribute much of my early sex ed to Forever.
Who could forget:
Margaret and her religious struggles and desire to use her Teenage Softies?
Deenie and her horrible scoliosis brace?
Peter playing the straight man to his clowny little brother Fudge?
Jill's flenser Halloween costume in Blubber?
Davey's freak-out when her aunt puts down her dead father's convenience store vocation in Tiger Eyes?
All of these books were written 40-ish years ago and they still ring true today. Judy Blume is the patron saint of young American girls and I salute her like crazy.
GEEGSTERS ROCK SVT
saturday 11.3
10:30
salvagevanguardtheater
manor rd
be there or regret it later!
THE FLENSER STRIPS THE BLUBBER
Posted by: Laurie at November 3, 2007 01:54 PMThere's a derby skater out here who also has her liberry degree...and her skate name is Judy Gloom.
Posted by: Amy! at November 4, 2007 02:09 PM