Blume, Judy 1938–

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Blume, Judy 1938–

(Judy Sussman Blume)

PERSONAL: Born February 12, 1938, in Elizabeth, NJ; daughter of Rudolph (a dentist) and Esther (Rosenfeld) Sussman; married John M. Blume (an attorney), August 15, 1959 (divorced, 1975); married third husband, George Cooper (a writer), June 6, 1987; children: (first marriage) Randy Lee (daughter), Lawrence Andrew; (third marriage) Amanda (stepdaughter). Education: New York University, B.S., 1961. Religion: Jewish.

ADDRESSES: Home—New York, NY. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Atheneum, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Writer of juvenile and adult fiction. Founder and trustee of KIDS Fund, 1981.

MEMBER: Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (member of board), PEN, Authors Guild (member of council; vice president, 2002–), National Coalition Against Censorship (member of board).

AWARDS, HONORS: New York Times best books for children list, 1970, Nene Award, 1975, Young Hoosier Book Award, 1976, and North Dakota Children's Choice Award, 1979, all for Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret; Charlie May Swann Children's Book Award, 1972, Young Readers Choice Award, Pacific Northwest Library Association, and Sequoyah Children's Book Award of Oklahoma, both 1975, Massachusetts Children's Book Award, Georgia Children's Book Award, and South Carolina Children's Book Award, all 1977, Rhode Island Library Association Award, 1978, North Dakota Children's Choice Award, and West Australian Young Readers' Book Award, both 1980, United States Army in Europe Kinderbuch Award, and Great Stone Face Award, New Hampshire Library Council, both 1981, all for Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing; Golden Archer Award, 1974; Arizona Young Readers Award, and Young Readers Choice Award, Pacific Northwest Library Association, both 1977, and North Dakota Children's Choice Award, 1983, all for Blubber; South Carolina Children's Book Award, 1978, for Otherwise Known As Sheila the Great; Texas Bluebonnet List, 1980, Michigan Young Readers' Award, and International Reading Association Children's Choice Award, both 1981, First Buckeye Children's Book Award, Nene Award, Sue Hefley Book Award, Louisiana Association of School Libraries, United States Army in Europe Kinderbuch Award, West Australian Young Readers' Book Award, North Dakota Children's Choice Award, Colorado Children's Book Award, Georgia Children's Book Award, Tennessee Children's Choice Book Award, and Utah Children's Book Award, all 1982, Northern Territory Young Readers' Book Award, Young Readers Choice Award, Pacific Northwest Library Association, Garden State Children's Book Award, Iowa Children's Choice Award, Arizona Young Readers' Award, California Young Readers' Medal, and Young Hoosier Book Award, all 1983, all for Superfudge; American Book Award nomination, Dorothy Canfield Fisher Children's Book Award, Buckeye Children's Book Award, and California Young Readers Medal, all 1983, all for Tiger Eyes; Today's Woman Award, 1981; Eleanor Roosevelt Humanitarian Award, Favorite Author—Children's Choice Award, Milner Award, and Jeremiah Ludington Memorial Award, all 1983; Carl Sandburg Freedom to Read Award, Chicago Public Library, 1984; Civil Liberties Award, Atlanta American Civil Liberties Union, and John Rock Award, Center for Population Options, Los Angeles, both 1986; D.H.L., Kean College, 1987; South Australian Youth Media Award for Best Author, South Australian Association for Media Education, 1988; Most Admired Author, Heroes of Young America Poll, 1989; National Hero Award, Big Brothers/Big Sisters, 1992; Dean's Award, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, 1993; Margaret A. Edwards Award for Outstanding Literature for Young Adults, American Library Association, 1996, for lifetime achievement writing for teens; honorary degree from Holyoke College, 2003; Writers for Writers Award, Poets and Writers, 2004.

WRITINGS:

JUVENILE FICTION

The One in the Middle Is the Green Kangaroo, Reilly & Lee, 1969, revised edition, Bradbury (New York, NY), 1981, second revised edition, with new illustrations, 1991.

Iggie's House, Bradbury (New York, NY), 1970.

Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret, Bradbury (New York, NY), 1970.

Then Again, Maybe I Won't (also see below), Bradbury (New York, NY), 1971.

Freckle Juice, Four Winds (New York, NY), 1971.

Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, Dutton (New York, NY), 1972.

Otherwise Known As Sheila the Great (also see below), Dutton (New York, NY), 1972.

It's Not the End of the World (also see below), Bradbury (New York, NY), 1972.

Deenie (also see below), Bradbury (New York, NY), 1973.

Blubber, Bradbury (New York, NY), 1974.

Starring Sally J. Freedman As Herself, Bradbury (New York, NY), 1977.

Superfudge, Dutton (New York, NY), 1980.

Tiger Eyes, Bradbury (New York, NY), 1981.

The Pain and the Great One, Bradbury (New York, NY), 1984.

Just As Long As We're Together, Orchard (New York, NY), 1987.

Fudge-a-Mania, Dutton (New York, NY), 1990.

Here's to You, Rachel Robinson, Orchard (New York, NY), 1993.

Double Fudge, Dutton (New York, NY), 2002.

A Judy Blume Collection: Three Novels by Best-selling Author Judy Blume: Deenie; It's Not the End of the World; Then Again, Maybe I Won't, Atheneum (New York, NY), 2003.

OTHER

Forever … (young-adult novel), Bradbury (New York, NY), 1975.

Wifey (adult novel), Putnam (New York, NY), 1977.

The Judy Blume Diary, Dell (New York, NY), 1981.

Smart Women (adult novel), Putnam (New York, NY), 1984.

Letters to Judy: What Your Kids Wish They Could Tell You (nonfiction), Putnam (New York, NY), 1986.

The Judy Blume Memory Book, Dell (New York, NY), 1988.

(And producer with son, Lawrence Blume) Otherwise Known As Sheila the Great (screenplay; adapted from her novel), Barr Films, 1988.

Summer Sisters (adult novel), Delacorte (New York, NY), 1998.

(Editor) Places I Never Meant to Be: Original Stories by Censored Writers, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1999.

(With others) Author Talk: Conversations with Judy Blume (and Others), Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 2000.

Some of Blume's papers are housed in the Kerlan Collection, University of Minnesota.

ADAPTATIONS: Forever … was adapted as a television film, CBS-TV, 1978; Freckle Juice was adapted as an animated film by Barr Films, 1987.

SIDELIGHTS: In the nearly thirty years since she published her first book, Judy Blume has become one of the most popular and controversial authors writing for children. Her accessible, humorous style and direct, sometimes explicit treatment of youthful concerns have won her many fans—as well as critics who sometimes seek to censor her work. Nevertheless, Blume has continued to produce works that are both entertaining and thought-provoking. "Blume has a knack for knowing what children think about and an honest, highly amusing way of writing about it," Jean Van Leeuwen stated in the New York Times Book Review.

Many critics attribute Blume's popularity to her ability to discuss openly, realistically, and compassionately the subjects that concern her readers. Her books for younger children, such as Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, Blubber, and Otherwise Known As Sheila the Great, deal with problems of sibling rivalry, establishing self-confidence, and social ostracism. Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing introduces Manhattanite Peter Warren Hatcher and his little brother Fudge. In the book's most memorable scene, Peter learns that his brother Fudge has swallowed his pet turtle. This book won numerous awards from organizations throughout the United States and continues to be a favorite with children. As Mark Oppenheimer noted in the New York Times Book Review, by 1996, the title "had sold over six million copies." Blume continued the story begun in Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing with Superfudge. In this book, the Hatcher family has moved to Princeton, New Jersey, and Fudge is ready to enter kindergarten. Fudge is still a problem for Peter: he keeps Peter out of the bathroom, sticks stamps all over the baby, and kicks his kindergarten teacher. "No one knows the byways of the under-twelves better than Blume," commented Pamela D. Pollack in School Library Journal. Brigitte Weeks of the Washington Post Book World remarked that the book demonstrates Blume's ability to create "good clean fun," adding, "Blume's books for younger readers are funny … important to children is the clear knowledge that Blume is on their team." In Double Fudge, Fudge develops such an obsession with money that his family decides to take him to the mint in Washington, DC, to show him how it is made. There, they run into relatives from Hawaii who end up barging in to stay with them. While the twins Fauna and Flora insist on singing at Fudge's school, their brother enjoys acting like a dog. Peter narrates the humorous events with an appropriate tone of frustration. Terrie Dorio in the School Library Journal believed that "Peter is a real twelve-year-old with all the insecurities and concerns of that age." The critic for Publishers Weekly praised "the sprightly clip of this cheerful read." Gillian Engberg in Booklist found that "Blume's humor and pitch-perfect ear for sibling rivalry and family dynamics will have readers giggling with recognition."

Blume's books for young adults, such as Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret, Deenie, and Just As Long As We're Together consider matters of divorce, friendship, family breakups, and sexual development, while Forever … specifically deals with a young woman's first love and first sexual experience. But whatever the situation, Blume's characters confront their feelings of confusion as a start to resolving their problems. In Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret, for example, the young protagonist examines her thoughts about religion and speculates about becoming a woman. The result is a book that uses "sensitivity and humor" in capturing "the joys, fears and uncertainty that surround a young girl approaching adolescence," Lavinia Russ wrote in Publishers Weekly.

"Blume's books reflect a general cultural concern with feelings about self and body, interpersonal relationships, and family problems," Alice Phoebe Naylor and Carol Wintercorn remarked in the Dictionary of Literary Biography. Blume has taken this general concern further, the critics continued, for "her portrayal of feelings of sexuality as normal, and not rightfully subject to punishment, [has] revolutionized realistic fiction for children." Blume's highlighting of sexuality reflects her ability to target the issues that most interest young people; when she first began writing, she "knew intuitively what kids wanted to know because I remembered what I wanted to know," she explained to John Neary of People Weekly. "I think I write about sexuality because it was uppermost in my mind when I was a kid: the need to know, and not knowing how to find out. My father delivered these little lectures to me, the last one when I was ten, on how babies are made. But questions about what I was feeling, and how my body could feel, I never asked my parents."

Nowhere is Blume's insight into character more apparent than in her fiction for adolescents, who are undeniably her most loyal and attentive audience. As Naomi Decter observed in Commentary, "There is, indeed, scarcely a literate girl of novel-reading age who has not read one or more Blume books." Not only does Blume address sensitive themes, she "is a careful observer of the everyday details of children's lives and she has a feel for the little power struggles and shifting alliances of their social relationships," R.A. Siegal commented in The Lion and the Unicorn. This realism enhances the appeal of her books, as Walter Clemons noted in a Newsweek review of Tiger Eyes: "No wonder teen-agers love Judy Blume's novels: She's very good…. Blume's delicate sense of character, eye for social detail and clear access to feelings touches even a hardened older reader. Her intended younger audience gets a first-rate novel written directly to them."

Blume reflected on her ability to communicate with her readers in a Publishers Weekly interview with Sybil Steinberg: "I have a capacity for total recall. That's my talent, if there's a talent involved. I have this gift, this memory, so it's easy to project myself back to certain stages in my life. And I write about what I know is true of kids going through those same stages." In addition, Blume enjoys writing for and about this age group. "When you're twelve, you're on the brink of adulthood," the author told Joyce Maynard in the New York Times Magazine, "but everything is still in front of you, and you still have the chance to be almost anyone you want. That seemed so appealing to me. I wasn't even thirty when I started writing, but already I didn't feel I had much chance myself." As a result, "whether she is writing about female or male sexual awakening, and whatever other adolescent problems, Judy Blume is on target," Dorothy M. Broderick asserted in the New York Times Book Review. "Her understanding of young people is sympathetic and psychologically sound; her skill engages the reader in human drama without melodrama."

Blume's style also plays a major role in her popularity; as Adele Geras remarked in New Statesman, Blume's books "are liked because they are accessible, warm hearted, often funny, and because in them her readers can identify with children like themselves in difficult situations, which may seem silly to the world at large but which are nevertheless very real to the sufferer." "It's hard not to like Judy Blume," Carolyn Banks elaborated in the Washington Post Book World. "Her style is so open, so honest, so direct. Each of her books reads as though she's not so much writing as kaffeeklatsching with you." In addition, Siegal observed that Blume's works are structured simply, making them easy to follow. "Her plots are loose and episodic: they accumulate rather than develop," the critic states. "They are not complicated or demanding."

Another way in which Blume achieves such a close affinity with her readers is through her consistent use of first-person narratives. As Siegal explained: "Through this technique she succeeds in establishing intimacy and identification between character and audience. All her books read like diaries or journals and the reader is drawn in by the narrator's self-revelations." "Given the sophistication of Miss Blume's material, her style is surprisingly simple," Decter similarly commented. "She writes for the most part in the first person: her vocabulary, grammar, and syntax are colloquial; her tone, consciously or perhaps not, evokes the awkwardness of a fifth grader's diary." In Just As Long As We're Together, for instance, the twelve-year-old heroine "tells her story in simple, real kid language," noted Mitzi Myers in the Los Angeles Times, "inviting readers to identify with her dilemmas over girlfriends and boyfriends and that most basic of all teen problems: 'Sometimes I feel grown up and other times I feel like a little kid.'"

Although Blume's work is consistently in favor with readers, it has frequently been the target of criticism. Some commentators have charged that the author's readable style, with its focus on mundane detail, lacks the depth to deal with the complex issues that she raises. In a Times Literary Supplement review of Just As Long As We're Together, for example, Jan Dalley claimed that Blume's work "is all very professionally achieved, as one would expect from this highly successful author, but Blume's concoctions are unvaryingly smooth, bland and glutinous." Critical reaction to Blume's young-adult novel Here's to You, Rachel Robinson follows a similar theme. The novel's plot concerns the conflicts and eventual reconciliation experienced by thirteen-year-old Rachel and her troubled and self-destructive older brother Charles. Critics noted that while this book maintains the author's tradition of treating the problems of adolescence with empathy and humor, the novel as a whole suffers from a slight superficiality.

Beryl Lieff Benderly believed that the author's readability sometimes masks what some critics call her "enormous skill as a novelist," as she wrote in a Washington Post Book World review of Here's to You, Rachel Robinson. "While apparently presenting the bright, slangy, surface details of life in an upper-middle class suburban junior high school, she's really plumbing the meaning of honesty, friendship, loyalty, secrecy, individuality, and the painful, puzzling question of what we owe those we love."

Other reviewers have taken exception to Blume's tendency to avoid resolving her fictional dilemmas in a straightforward fashion, for her protagonists rarely finish dealing with all their difficulties by the end of the book. Many critics, however, think that it is to Blume's credit that she does not settle every problem for her readers. One such critic, Robert Lipsyte, in a Nation review maintained that "Blume explores the feelings of children in a nonjudgmental way. The immediate resolution of a problem is never as important as what the protagonist … will learn about herself by confronting her life." Lipsyte explained that "the young reader gains from the emotional adventure story both by observing another youngster in a realistic situation and by finding a reference from which to start a discussion with a friend or parent or teacher. For many children, talking about a Blume story is a way to expose their own fears about menstruation or masturbation or death." Countering other criticisms that by not answering the questions they raise Blume's books fail to educate their readers, Siegal likewise suggested: "It does not seem that Blume's books … ought to be discussed and evaluated on the basis of what they teach children about handling specific social or personal problems. Though books of this type may sometimes be useful in giving children a vehicle for recognizing and ventilating their feelings, they are, after all, works of fiction and not self-help manuals."

Even more disturbing to some adults is Blume's treatment of mature issues and her use of frank language. "Menstruation, wet dreams, masturbation, all the things that are whispered about in real school halls" are the subjects of Blume's books, related interviewer Sandy Rovner in the Washington Post. As a result, Blume's works have frequently been the targets of censorship, and Blume herself has become an active crusader for freedom of expression. She has answers to those who would censor her work for its explicitness. "The way to instill values in children is to talk about difficult issues and bring them out in the open, not to restrict their access to books that may help them deal with their problems and concerns," she said in a Toronto Globe and Mail interview with Isabel Vincent. And, as she revealed to Peter Gorner in the Chicago Tribune, she never intended her work to inspire protest in the first place: "I wrote these books a long time ago when there wasn't anything near the censorship that there is now," she told Gorner. "I wasn't aware at the time that I was writing anything controversial. I just know what these books would have meant to me when I was a kid."

Others similarly defend Blume's choice of subject matter. For example, Natalie Babbitt asserted in the New York Times Book Review: "Some parents and librarians have come down hard on Judy Blume for the occasional vulgarities in her stories. Blume's vulgarities, however, exist in real life and are presented in her books with honesty and full acceptance." And those who focus only on the explicit aspects of Blume's books are missing their essence, Judith M. Goldberger proposed in the Newsletter on Intellectual Freedom. "Ironically, concerned parents and critics read Judy Blume out of context, and label the books while children and young adults read the whole books to find out what they are really about and to hear another voice talking about a host of matters with which they are concerned in their daily lives. The grownups, it seems, are the ones who read for the 'good' parts, more so than the children."

Blume, too, realizes that the controversial nature of her work receives the most attention. That causes concern for her beyond any censorship attempts. As the author explained to Maynard: "What I worry about is that an awful lot of people, looking at my example, have gotten the idea that what sells is teenage sex, and they'll exploit it. I don't believe that sex is why kids like my books. The impression I get, from letter after letter, is that a great many kids don't communicate with their parents. They feel alone in the world. Sometimes, reading books that deal with other kids who feel the same things they do, it makes them feel less alone." The volume of Blume's fan mail seems to reinforce the fact that her readers are looking for contact with an understanding adult. Hundreds of letters arrive each week not only praising her books but also asking her for advice or information. As Blume remarked in Publishers Weekly, "I have a wonderful, intimate relationship with kids. It's rare and lovely. They feel that they know me and that I know them."

In 1986 Blume collected a number of letters from her readers and published them, along with some of her own comments, as Letters to Judy: What Your Kids Wish They Could Tell You. The resulting book, aimed at both children and adults, "is an effort to break the silence, to show parents that they can talk without looking foolish, to show children that parents are human and remember what things were like when they were young, and to show everyone that however trivial the problem may seem it's worth trying to sort it out," wrote Geras. "If parents and children alike read Letters to Judy," advice columnist Elizabeth Winship likewise observed in the New York Times Book Review, "it might well help them to ease into genuine conversation. The book is not a how-to manual, but one compassionate and popular author's way to help parents see life through their children's eyes, and feel it through their hearts and souls." Blume feels so strongly about the lack of communication between children and their parents that she used the royalties from Letters to Judy, among other projects, to help finance the KIDS Fund, which she established in 1981. Each year, the fund contributes approximately 45,000 dollars to various nonprofit organizations set up to help young people communicate with their parents.

Over the years, Blume's writing has matured and her audience has expanded with each new book. Her first adult novel, Wifey, deals with a woman's search for more out of life and marriage; the second, Smart Women, finds a divorced woman trying to deal with single motherhood and new relationships. Although these books are directed at a different audience, they share with her juvenile fiction two characteristics: an empathy for the plights and feelings of her characters and a writing style that is humorous and easy to read. Interestingly enough, even in Blume's adult fiction "the voices of the children ring loudest and clearest," Linda Bird Francke declared in a New York Times Book Review, praising Blume's Smart Women in particular for its portrayal of "the anger, sadness, confusion and disgust children of divorce can feel."

One reason children play such a role in Blume's "adult" fiction may be due to the author's reluctance to direct her works solely toward a narrow audience, as she disclosed in her interview with Steinberg: "I hate to categorize books…. I wish that older readers would read my books about young people, and I hope that younger readers will grow up to read what I have to say about adult life. I'd like to feel that I write for everybody. I think that my appeal has to do with feelings and with character identification. Things like that don't change from generation to generation. That's what I really know." "I love family life," the author added in her interview with Gorner. "I love kids. I think divorce is a tragedy, traumatic and horribly painful for everybody. That's why I wrote Smart Women. I want kids to read that and to think what life might be like for their parents. And I want parents to think about what life is like for their kids."

Banks commended Blume not only for her honest approach to issues, but for her "artistic integrity": "She's never content to rest on her laurels, writing the same book over and over as so many successful writers do." For instance, Tiger Eyes, the story of Davey, a girl whose father is killed in a robbery, is "a lesson on how the conventions of a genre can best be put to use," Lipsyte claimed. While the author uses familiar situations and characters, showing Davey dealing with an annoying younger sibling, a move far from home, and a new family situation, "the story deepens, takes turns," the critic continued, particularly when Davey's family moves in with an uncle who works for a nuclear weapons plant. The result, Lipsyte stated, is Blume's "finest book—ambitious, absorbing, smoothly written, emotionally engaging and subtly political." And even when Blume returns to familiar characters, as she does in the series starting with Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing and Superfudge, her sequels "expand on the original and enrich it, so that [the] stories … add up to one long and much more wonderful story," Jean Van Leeuwen remarked in a New York Times Book Review article about Fudge-a-Mania.

"Blume is concerned to describe characters surviving, finding themselves, growing in understanding, coming to terms with life," John Gough noted in School Librarian. While the solutions her characters find and the conclusions they make "may not be original or profound," the critic continued, "neither are they trivial. The high sales of Blume's books are testimony to the fact that what she has to say is said well and is well worth saying." While her "willingness to recognize children's serious thoughts about sex, religion and class made her a figure of controversy twenty-five years ago," as Mark Oppenheimer commented in the New York Times Book Review, "Blume has become an icon, as famous for those who tried to cleanse libraries of her books as for the books themselves." Faith McNulty concluded in the New Yorker: "I find much in Blume to be thankful for. She writes clean, swift, unadorned prose. She has convinced millions of young people that truth can be found in a book and that reading is fun. At a time that many believe may be the twilight of the written word, those are things to be grateful for."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Children's Literature Review, Thomson Gale (Detroit, MI), Volume 2, 1976, Volume 15, 1988.

Contemporary Literary Criticism, Thomson Gale (Detroit, MI), Volume 12, 1980, Volume 30, 1984.

Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 52: American Writers for Children since 1960: Fiction, Thomson Gale (Detroit, MI), 1986.

Fisher, Emma, and Justin Wintle, The Pied Pipers, Paddington Press, 1975.

Gleasner, Diana, Breakthrough: Women in Writing, Walker, 1980.

Lee, Betsey, Judy Blume's Story, Dillon Press, 1981.

Rees, David, The Marble in the Water: Essays on Contemporary Writers of Fiction for Children and Young Adults, Horn Book (Boston, MA), 1980, pp. 173-184.

Weidt, Maryann, Presenting Judy Blume, Twayne (New York, NY), 1989.

Wheeler, Jill C., Judy Blume, Abdo and Daughters (Edina, MN), 1996.

PERIODICALS

Booklist, September 15, 2002, Gillian Engberg, "Fudge Is Back!," p. 235.

Boston Globe, January 30, 1971.

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, April, 1970, Zena Sutherland, review of The One in the Middle Is the Green Kangaroo, p. 125; May, 1975, Zena Sutherland, review of Blubber, p. 142; October, 1993, review of Here's To You, Rachel Robinson, p. 39.

Chicago Tribune, September 24, 1978; March 15, 1985.

Christian Science Monitor, May 14, 1979; March 14, 1984.

Commentary, March, 1980.

Commonweal, July 4, 1980.

Detroit Free Press, February 26, 1984.

Detroit News, February 15, 1985.

Detroit News Magazine, February 4, 1979.

English Journal, September, 1972; March, 1976.

Entertainment Weekly, October 11, 2002, Rebecca Ascher Walsh, "The 'Fudge' Report: Are You There, Readers? It's Me, Judy Blume, with a New Children's Book … Finally," p. 77.

Five Owls, November-December, 1993, pp 37-38.

Globe and Mail (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), November 17, 1990.

Horn Book, November-December, 2002, Jennifer M. Brabander, review of Double Fudge, p. 748.

Kirkus Reviews, September 1, 1973, p. 965; March 15, 1998; September 1, 2002, review of Double Fudge, p. 1304.

Lion and the Unicorn, fall, 1978, R.A. Siegal, "Are You There, God? It's Me, Me, Me!: Judy Blume's Self-Absorbed Narrators," pp. 72-77.

Los Angeles Times, December 26, 1987.

Los Angeles Times Book Review, October 5, 1980; August 31, 1986.

Nation, November 21, 1981.

NEA Today, October, 1984, p. 10.

Newsletter on Intellectual Freedom, May, 1981.

New Statesman, November 5, 1976; November 14, 1980; October 24, 1986.

Newsweek, October 9, 1978; December 7, 1981; August 23, 1982.

New Yorker, December 5, 1983; December 13, 1993, pp. 116-7.

New York Times, October 3, 1982; February 21, 1984.

New York Times Book Review, May 24, 1970; November 8, 1970; December 9, 1970; January 16, 1972; September 3, 1972; November 3, 1974; December 28, 1975; May 25, 1976; May 1, 1977; November 23, 1980; November 15, 1981; February 19, 1984; June 8, 1986; November 8, 1987, p. 33; November 11, 1990; December 19, 1993, p. 16; November 16, 1997, Mark Oppenheimer, "Why Judy Blume Endures," pp. 44-45; July 19, 1998, p. 18.

New York Times Magazine, December 3, 1978; August 23, 1982.

People Weekly, October 16, 1978; August 16, 1982; March 19, 1984; March 7, 1994, p. 38.

Publishers Weekly, January 11, 1971; October 8, 1973; April 17, 1978; June 24, 2002, review of Double Fudge, p. 57; August 12, 2002, Sally Lodge, "The Return of Fudge: Thirty Years On, Judy Blume's Popular Character Is Forever Feisty, Forever Five," p. 150.

Saturday Review, September 18, 1971.

School Librarian, May, 1987.

School Library Journal, August, 1980, Pamela D. Pollack, review of Superfudge, pp. 60-61; September, 2002, Terrie Dorio, review of Double Fudge, p. 181.

Time, August 23, 1982.

Times Literary Supplement, October 1, 1976; April 7, 1978; January 29-February 4, 1988.

U.S. News and World Report, October 14, 2002, Vicky Hallett, "She Can't Say Farewell to Fudge," p. 12.

Voice of Youth Advocates, December, 1993, p. 287.

Washington Post, November 3, 1981.

Washington Post Book World, August 14, 1977; October 8, 1978; November 9, 1980, Brigitte Weeks, review of Superfudge, p. 12; September 13, 1981; February 12, 1984; November 8, 1987.

Wilson Library Bulletin, January, 1994, p. 119.