Good books last Forever
Judy Blume Forever, currently streaming on Prime, took me right back to discovering that there were actually books written for people like me who were dealing with real life stuff like growing up, relationships and bullying rather than what appeared to be going on in the jolly hockey-sticks school stories that were prevalent at the time. I adored Judy’s work even though she was clearly American. It felt like she understood what might be going on on my head despite what I looked like on the outside, and that it was ok to think that a lot of what was happening in the world was wrong and it was ok to say so. She found a unique and real children's voice.
My first job was working in a children’s library and I well remember the kerfuffle and debates around whether to stock ‘Forever’ which was a sensitive, but open and non-judgemental look at a first sexual relationship from a girl’s point of view. It was lovely to read a story where the girl wasn’t punished for behaving in the same way as a boy, but there was a huge backlash, particularly in the US and it kickstarted one of their periodic book banning phases. Looking back, Blume's books are pretty white and very heteronormative, and some of the sexual politics is a bit iffy, but for the time it was at the forefront of expressing the cultural change that had been happening out of sight. Talking openly about taboo topics such as puberty, menstruation, masturbation and sex, alongside body image and bullying, but with real and engaging characters at the heart of her stories, she was groundbreaking in so many ways. At the time, her work made such a difference to young people's lives, and many wrote to her to tell her about their own, sometimes awful, struggles that they were having, and a few turned up in the documentary to tell how she had changed their real lives for the better.
What the programme also showed was her own feminist journey, and the censorship that radicalised her all over again. Within 5 minutes she states passionately ' A book cannot harm a child', something much of what of her life's work is based on. I love that she now runs what looks like a perfect bookshop with her husband, where no book is banned.
Fast forward 40 years and we are in the same place again sadly, although this time the banned books are about race and wider expressions of sexuality and gender, again not really pushing the boundaries but expressing the cultural change that has already happened and giving young people a sense that they are ok to feel and think the way they do. As I'm now an oldie, I am not the target of these books any more, but I love a good young adult novel as a way of not only being young vicariously in today's world, but in understanding how far we have come, and so I do still enjoy them, and often find they have something to teach me.
Some of Blume's work hasn't aged well, but in a good way, as the world has continued to move forward, but they are now great historical resources on how things were. I've put a short list at the bottom of the page of some recent YA authors who are writing about race, gender, sexuality and sexual politics and the life of young people in today's world
The documentary on Blume was mildly hagiographic, but you know what, I'm prepared to allow her that. A salute to Judy Blume and the young adult writers of today, continuing to fly in the face of bigotry and patronisation of young people to give them what they need.
Some great YA writing from the last 5 years:
- Loveless by Alice Oseman
- I was Born for This by Alice Oseman
- The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
- I am Alfonso Jones by Tony Medina
- The Black Flamingo by Dean Atta
- Heartstopper by Alice Oseman
- Are you there God, It's me Margaret by Judy Blume
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