If you ask any children who grew up reading Judy Blume, they will tell you exactly what they learned from each of Blume’s books, which taboo rites of passage each book introduced, and probably even where they were, physically and developmentally, when they first stumbled upon this information. They might even remember the precise page number of the paperback that was passed around middle school on which the most eye-opening passages appeared.
I recently reread her classic, “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret,” in advance of seeing the film adaptation that opens this week, 52 years after the book’s publication.
In my memory, “Margaret” was mainly about puberty, specifically about getting your period for the first time. I vividly remembered the famous scenes when Margaret first encounters sanitary napkins and when she and her friends do exercises to “get out of those baby bras,” chanting, “We must – we must – we must increase our bust!”
As I reread the…
2023-04-29 05:29:49
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