Book Review: The Genius of Judy
Most writing is transitory. Novels and stories are published, find some readers, and fade from memory. This may be even more true for authors of fiction for young readers where the very audience itself typically ages out of the genre. Judy Blume, however, bucks this trend. Blume’s groundbreaking novels for children and young adults altered American perceptions of childhood as Rachelle Bergstein argues in her masterful The Genius of Judy: How Judy Blume Rewrote Childhood for All of Us. Bergstein’s book will be enjoyed by anyone interested in YA literature, the development of childhood in Modern America, and morality and censorship.
The book is the best kind of literary biography. Bergstein develops Blume’s biography with the deep intermixing of her key novels to illustrate the ways in which her life intersected in fascinating ways with her writing. This is used to illustrate the broader narrative of how Blume came to represent a fundamental shift in the understanding of childhood. Blume was raised in the traditional norms of middle class white America in post-WWII America: girls are to marry, serve their husbands and children, and be happy for it. They are not to discuss dirty issues like periods, sex, or career ambitions. Blume’s own autobiography demonstrates the common outcome of this upbringing with her finding her suburban wife life to be unfulfilling and ultimately depressing. Blume sought to combat “housewife syndrome” by turning to writing for children where the dominant framework required “that all stories should have a good, clear-cut moral with no questions left unanswered in the end” (7). The moral was key. Children’s literature was treated as another method of didactic instruction where young people are respectful of authority, believe in God and country, and never, ever thinks of sex.
Blume came to represent a new movement in children’s literature: contemporary realism. In simple terms, the books can and should reflect the lives kids actually live in and the world around them. The world isn’t one of clean stories and moral narratives. It’s messy and children’s and YA lit should reflect this. Blume’s characters were flawed, they talked back, they swore, drank, and, yes, had sexual desires. Thus, in her ground breaking Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret (1970), Blume centered adolescent girls and their changing bodies. She discussed menstruation frankly and joyously. No one had ever done this. Then came Deenie (1973) where the teen protagonist masturbated. For an author to admit that girls not only might desire sex but that they masturbated, well in the polite society of middle class life that was not something talked about. But nothing compared to her 1975 novel Forever.
Sex and YA barely existed before Forever. The few novels touching on sex did so in a classic bit of didactic warning. Bergstein discusses two examples in which teen sex leads to pregnancy: “One young woman marries the baby’s father, miscarries, and then her future dissolves into a heavy haze of responsibility and grief. Another girl has an illegal abortion and nearly hemorrhages to death, missing her graduation” (80). Thus, the moral of the good girl was reinforced: good girls only had sex within marriage and were rewarded with kids and loving husbands, bad girls had premarital sex and were ruined because of it. Blume grew up in this world and sought to rebuff it. In Forever the teens have sex and experience none of these supposed natural consequences. Blume focuses on her heroine Kate’s careful decision making. She desires sex, a revolutionary idea to some, but takes it slow and makes sure she’s prepared with birth control. She even considers how abortion will solve any accidents. She has sex and what is more, Blume shows the evolution of that sex. It is disappointing as most teen sex probably is, but Kate demands that she have a chance to enjoy it as well and they work at it. To call this groundbreaking doesn’t do it justice. I read it at 40, nearly 45 years after publication, and I was shocked at how frank Blume was.
And, ultimately, this is why I spend a lot of time thinking about Blume; her work broke new ground in depicting a modern, real childhood and so many couldn’t handle it. I learned from Bergstein that Forever was initially sold as adult fiction rather than YA precisely because the publisher was nervous of public reaction. This kind of preemptive appeasement to censors pretty much never works and it failed here. Forever became a popular book passed amongst teen girls precisely because it was one of the few sources of information about sex ed that they could get access to. Sure it was also spicy and steamy, something to giggle over. But it told them not to be ashamed of their changing bodies and their natural desire for sex. For some that was a dangerous message. One mother complained that “Judy Blume had this beautiful opportunity to teach kids a lesson, if she’d just given an example of suffering or punishment. But the girl doesn’t get pregnant or have a nervous breakdown” (105). I can’t imagine wanting to send that message to teens but so many do. Thanks to Blume’s message, her books were targeted for censorship from the 1970s to the 1990s - hell, Forever is banned in all Utah schools at the moment. Bergstein does an admirable job laying out the challenges made to Blume’s novels and how she and her allies worked to push back and defend the right of even kids to read. I’m especially happy by the inclusion of Norma Klein. Klein was every bit the rebel that Blume was, perhaps even more so, but she came just slightly after Blume and, thus, existed in her shadow. They were challenged together frequently int he 1980s but Klein’s name has been sadly forgotten. I’m happy that readers will see her name and maybe track down her works.
Overall, I loved this book with two issues. The first is I think Bergstein tries to universalize Blume too much. Her books are described as “embody[ing] a ideal for Blume that transcended race or class.” While this universalizing ethic is something Blume may have strove for, her classic YA books were still deeply embedded in a straight, white, middle/upper middle class suburban life. That was the world that Blume knew and she depicted it in all of her books. Readers looking for the experiences of folks outside of these boxes are going to find little. That isn’t necessarily a criticism of Blume. The problem when we talk about groundbreaking work in representation is that we often ask too much of it. We want it to be everything, to speak to all the issues. And nothing can. Blume spoke from the spot she understood and in doing so told important stories, other authors, often inspired by her, would build upon it and spread that representation. But Bergstein tends to gloss over Blume’s own limitations in this regard.
The second criticism is a law nerd criticism but one that drives me nuts. She engages with Board of Education v. Pico (1982) as part of the discussion of censorship. As book challenges took hold in the 1970s and early 1980s, the question of whether removals raised First Amendment concerns was hotly contested with lower courts dividing over the issue. Pico was the Supreme Court’s one attempt to answer this question and Bergstein describes it as a “5-4 majority arguing that elected school boards do not have the authority to remove books from circulation simply because they dislike them” (151). But as I’ve explained here more than once, that isn’t true. Pico didn’t have a majority opinion. Five justices voted in favor of the students and sent the case back for trial, but these five justices did not agree on a rationale. Justice Brennan’s decision, the one that Bergstein focuses on, only had 3 clear votes (maybe a fourth kinda). This is a bit in the weeds but is important because that means the case didn’t establishing any binding precedent for lower courts to follow. And, as she goes on to note, even Brennan’s opinion had big gaps that schools could use to justify removals. Pico offers few answers, and this is one reason so few book removal lawsuits have been filed in the 40 years since, and that ambivalence is important in talking about legal dimensions of censorship.
But these criticisms are minor in scope. Bergstein’s book is a wonderful fun read. It works as a biography of an interesting author but also in situating Blume’s life in the broader narrative of late 20th century feminism the biographical aspects take on a deeper narrative. Finally, Bergstein’s engagement with Blume’s key YA works (as well as many of her other books) and how they transformed our understanding of childhood and teen experiences is wonderful.
