NRO Weekend, September 30-October 1, 2000
Early Blumers
In defense of censorship.

By Kathryn Jean Lopez, NR associate editor------------lopezk@ix.netcom.com

hen I got to college, there was no author, except Shakespeare, whom more of my peers had read," wrote Yale's Mark Oppenheimer of Judy Blume in a 1997 essay in the New York Times Book Review. The Kleenex-carrying crowds that turned out for Judy Blume's most recent book tour two summers ago help prove that statement.

Already an American icon (her fictional penis named Ralph, and her "I must, I must, I must increase my bust" chant are right up there with apple pie), the success of her latest adult novel, Summer Sisters, brought millions of readers back home, reminiscing with their childhood guide Judy, about her stories of sex, both lesbian and heterosexual; suicide, both attempted and successful; and statutory rape, both real and fantasized.

The author of nineteen books for children and "young adults," Judy Blume has been a substitute parent for children worldwide since 1969 — letting kids in on the secrets of teen sex that their parents would otherwise keep at a distance.

This past week was "Banned Books Week." Blume, the most censored author in the United States, came out as she is wont to do once a year, to rally against the uptight forces of the Religious Right and all others who try to ban books in schools. Some people can be way too sensitive — National Review has had some experience with those types in recent years. However, when you are talking about your kids and what their teachers are teaching them in school or what is available to them during the school day in their school libraries, it's a different issue entirely. Isn't it?

Contrary to the premise of Banned Books Week, and to Blume's "Isn't this America?" cries at a Freedom Forum panel in New York this week — no one's rights are being trampled on if a few parents question the use of a particular book in their children's classroom. And there is no body of work more beloved than Judy Blume's that so convincingly — however unintentionally — makes that point.

Take Blume's Forever, the unofficial playbook for teen sex. It's the story of two high-school seniors, Katherine and Michael, and their adventures in "losing it." Although blessed with a progressive grandmother, granny is, alas, often too busy with NOW and Planned Parenthood rallies to offer Katherine adequate sex advice. Forget mom — she was a virgin until marriage. Fortunately, though, the local Planned Parenthood clinic comes to the rescue, offering Katherine the Pill she needs to make it all safe.

Blume's most-read pages fall in Forever. Making use of her parents living room, Michael doubles up a towel to avoid blue-dress-like evidence on the carpet and gets to work.

Ralph was pushing against me and I whispered, "Are you in . . . are we doing it?"

"Not yet," Michael said, pushing harder. "I don't want to hurt you."

"Don't worry . . . just do it!"

"I'm trying, Kath . . . but it's very tight in there."

"What should I do?"

"Can you spread your legs some more . . . and maybe raise them a little?"

"Like this?"

"That's better . . . much better."

I could feel him halfway inside me and then Michael whispered, "Kath . . ."

"What?"

"I think I'm going to come again."

You get the idea. Other passages are just not fit for these pages (as if the previous one is), including graphic descriptions of Katherine's growing familiarity with Michael's reproductive organ, affectionately known as "Ralph."

For younger readers — that is, those on a fourth-grade reading level — Deenie is the sympathetic portrayal of an 12-year-old girl whose scoliosis puts her in a body brace for four years. The subplot, however, reads like a Jocelyn Elders how-to manual for self-arousal.

Amidst the frustration of her mother's unrealistic expectations that Deenie should have a lucrative modeling career, the humiliation of walking around in a brace (especially while hoping the cute Buddy Brader will sneak into the school's locker room again to steal another kiss), Deenie's relief comes from "touching myself" in "my special place."

In a Q&A session during gym class, Deenie turns in an anonymous note.

"Do normal people touch their bodies before they go to sleep and is it all right to do that?" After answering some menstruation-related questions girls have posed, the physical education teacher addresses Deenie's query. "Can anyone help us with an answer?'"

After one girl answers that boys who do such things are in danger of going blind, developing acne, or physical deformities, Mrs. Rappoport responds:

"I can see you've got a lot of misinformation. Does anyone here know the word for stimulating our genitals? Because that's what we're talking about, you know."

It got very quiet in the gym. Nobody said anything for a long time. 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. "Okay," Mrs. Rappoport said. "Now that you've said it let me try to explain. First of all, it's normal and harmless to masturbate.". . .

None of this is for girl's only. It's an equal-opportunity education Blume provides. In Then Again, Maybe I Won't, 12-year-old Tony Miglione is lucky enough to have a mother who works in Orbach's lingerie department and a birds-eye view into sweet-sixteen, well-developed Lisa's bedroom window. Lisa — the antidote for the stress of adjusting to a new house in a new neighborhood — is also the perfect occasion for Tony to catch up with his buddies (who underline erotic passages in adult novels) in the wet-dream department.

His neighbor (Lisa's brother) Joel's paperbacks introduce one of Tony's big concerns.

When I read from Joel's paperbacks I can feel myself get hard. But other times when I'm not even thinking about anything it goes up too. I don't know what to do about that. I mean, if my brain is working right it's supposed to control my whole body. But if I don't have any control over that part of me what good is my brain? It's getting so I don't have anything to say about what goes on. I think that part of me has a mind of its own.

Suppose it decided to go up in school and everybody notices? Or at a Junior Youth Group meeting? What will I do to get it down? I think from now on I'm going to carry a raincoat with me everyday. Then, if anything happens I'll have something to put over me in a hurry."

Thank goodness Judy's books are around, especially since parents are no help in these matters. In her 1986 Letters to Judy: What Your Kids Wish They Could Tell You, a compilation of letters she's received from children and parents, Blume relays the story of a mother who dared to edit a copy of The Again, Maybe I Won't. Judy was dismayed to learn upon meeting the woman that she had read the book before giving it to her son as a present on his twelfth birthday, and cut out the pages with the most explicit discussions of masturbation and "nocturnal emissions" (as the boy's gym teacher calls it in Then Again, Maybe I Won't). The mother "didn't think her son was old enough to read about" these things. Fortunately, though, as Blume learned upon meeting the woman's son a few years later, he was always onto his mom — he read the most important parts in the public library.

One repressed mother hasn't been Blume's only worry over the years. Poster-girl for the National Coalition Against Censorship, Blume is no stranger to isolated attempts to pull her books from library shelves (she's on the People for the American Way's list of most endangered books). But with commendations galore — the American Library Association gave her their lifetime achievement award in children's literature in 1997, and Publisher's Weekly lists 6 of her books in their top twenty All-Time Bestselling Paperback Children's Books — there's little cause for Judy's kids (young and old) to be concerned.

A recent Blume revival, encouraged by a Saturday morning television series based on her Fudge series for young readers (a travelling theater show debuts this spring) — not to mention the five months Summer Sisters spent on the New York Times Bestseller List — is well underway, insuring her accessibility. Besides, with one generation taken care of and another being worked on, she's here to stay.

But that doesn't mean your kid needs to read her.