Feeling the Judy Blume Love...

I keep seeing Judy Blume mentions lately. First because Simon & Schuster recently released a new paperback version of Forever. (Raise your hand if you and all your friends sneak-read this book in 7th grade, got caught, and got the nuns all in a tizzy.) I imagine this frequently banned classic would seem pretty tame to today's One Tree Hill-watching teens--perhaps I'll pull out my old copy and read it on the plane on the way to New York next week and see what all the fuss was about.

Getting even more buzz is a compilation of essays titled Everything I Needed to Know About Being a Girl I Learned from Judy Blume. I gotta say, Blume was one helpful lady for me, as a kid in the '70s. Where else could I get some answers to questions about menstruation (I was right there with ya, Margaret), masturbation and sex in the privacy of my own paperback? I think most of all, I learned I was not alone in the exercise of adolescence.

I also had a revelation about...breakfast cereal. I remember it vividly as I read Deenie. There was a scene during which the title character is making breakfast and she's sprinkling her bowl of cereal with raisins and brown sugar and such. It was as if a whole new world of breakfast options were opened to me the moment I realized that one does not have to eat one's corn flakes just as they are in the box. I know this sounds silly, but it was very exciting at the time. (Even back then, I was very into all things food. You may recall my 2002 CWIM "From the Editor" in which I told the story of when my mom banned me from watching "The French Chef" with Julia Child when I was 9 or 10.)

Thanks, Judy.