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Nov
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Posted by Christopher Waldrop
November 28, 2007 |
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My fourth grade teacher, Ms. Rich, devoted part of each day to reading to the entire class. We’d squat down on the carpet around her desk and listen. There were only two authors I remember who got the honor of having more than one of their books read. One was Roald Dahl. The other was Judy Blume. Luckily our classroom was one of those old portable buildings and set outside of the main school because Tales Of A Fourth Nothing and Superfudge had all of us laughing so loud Ms. Rich might have gotten in trouble for causing a disturbance.
In fifth grade I moved on to Blubber and Otherwise Known As Sheila The Great. Yes, these were girls’ books, but at the same time Blume’s books were appealing even to the boys in the class because there was a sense that Blume got it, that, especially in her darker books, she was capturing the way kids talked and acted in such a blunt and real way that it transcended gender. And there was the added appeal that, even though Blume’s books were approved reading, we still felt like we were getting away with something. Apparently Blume’s appeal was trans-Atlantic: recently Isabel Berwick, writing in Financial Times, considers her discovery of Blume’s Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret a defining moment in her life. And she’s not exaggerating when she credits Blume’s tremendous influence on children’s literature, so that “Even Harry Potter is allowed some proper teen passion.” And Ben Myers, writing in The Guardian Blog, says, “Judy Blume taught me everything I know.”That’s a gutsy thing to say about almost any author, but he has a serious point: Blume went where other writers not only feared to tread but steered clear of. She didn’t treat childhood as a fantasy land, and understood that, between being a child and an adult, there’s a vast terrain most of us have a hard time navigating. In fact there’s even a book called Everything I Needed To Know About Being A Girl I Learned From Judy Blume, which includes an essay by blogger Erica Orloff.
In the December 2007/January 2008 issue of Bust (the magazine “for women with something to get off their chests”) there’s a brief article titled “Blumesday” about a Turkish publishing house, Çitlembik, that’s publishing the first ever Turkish translations of Blume’s books, starting with, of course, Tales Of A Fourth Grade Nothing and Superfudge. Translator Zarife Öztürk is the daughter of the publishing house’s founder, Nancy Öztürk. Turkish kids picked up the books almost immediately, and teachers now assign them to their classes. Öztürk’s 2005 translation of Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret hasn’t been as successful, but, as she notes, the book’s dealing with religion may be riskier than anything else in it. As she explains, “In a predominantly Muslim country, a child’s religion is written on their records.”
As we make efforts to understand the Middle East there’s also something reassuring about parts of the Middle East making an effort to understand the
West. I think Blume is the perfect ambassador in many ways Her books are still challenged and some are even banned from American schools on a regular basis. Even in schools that keep Blume’s books on their library shelves some, especially Forever, are still relegated to the “restricted” section. Topics like religion and sexuality, especially when it comes to teenagers, may not be taboo here in the West but that doesn’t make them any easier to talk about. Blume’s books give kids, their parents, and their teachers a starting point for talking about these difficult topics.
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