All the little girls — now mothers and grandmothers — who grew up reading Judy Blume will celebrate this biography of the beloved author. Great-grandmothers will applaud the cover photo of the 88-year-old writer who, after “a bit of work,” still looks great. (Yes, she follows the Katharine Hepburn rule for women of a certain age: Wear turtlenecks.)

Judy Blume is a coronation, complete with the biographer’s genuflection to his subject. “I just love her,” writes Mark Oppenheimer, who grew up reading and re-reading Blume’s books dozens of times, and now his five children do the same. His first published essay, “Why Judy Blume Endures,” which ran on November 16, 1997, in the New York Times Book Review, extolled Blume as the professor of puberty: popular with children but lacking adult acclaim.

“I was assigned [Scott] O’Dell’s Island of the Blue Dolphins and was made to read each volume of [Madeleine] L’Engle’s Time trilogy,” he wrote. “No teacher ever assigned Judy Blume.” Oppenheimer, who holds a Ph.D. in American religious history from Yale, chose to read Blume because “she was real,” and her books addressed sex, puberty, breasts, divorce, gas pains, and pap smears.

An unabashed fan, he decided to honor his idol with his first biography, for which Blume gave him full access. She sat “for hours of interviews, in person and on the telephone.” She answered “hundreds of questions by email” and offered access to her husband, her children, her assistants, her friends. She opened a hundred boxes of files, photos, memos, notes, and letters. Oppenheimer sent her his first draft, and she responded with 40 pages of corrections and additions. Not since Boswell has a biographer bagged such a bonanza.

In his chatty narrative, Oppenheimer states that Blume had “three great assets as a writer”:

1. She was industrious. From 1967-1968, she wrote multiple books with hundreds of pages of text, plus drawings.
2. She was hungry for criticism. She wanted to improve and looked for people to help her.
3. She knew when to take the criticism and when to leave it.

It may be reassuring for aspiring writers to read of Blume’s many rejections before she finally got published and the immense fortitude she developed to keep on plugging away, which suggests that success is persistence in disguise.           

Judy Blume began life in 1938 as Judith Marcia Sussman, an Orthodox Jew born “scrawny and underweight” in Elizabeth, New Jersey. Her father was a dentist; her mother kept house for Judy and her older brother. After Hebrew school and a bat mitzvah, Blume graduated from New York University with a B.A. in education.

“I married at twenty-one…everyone did,” she recalled. By 28, she had a young son and a daughter but “realized I needed something else in my life.” So, she made felt wall-hangings that she sold to Bloomingdale’s. “After that, [I tried] songwriting.” Then, she took a night course on creative writing and decided to compose stories for children with a “dream of becoming the next Dr. Seuss.”           

Feeling “suffocated” in her first marriage, Blume divorced after several years and immediately rebounded to a second husband. She left him two years later and “cried every day,” she said. “Anyone who thinks my life is cupcakes is all wrong.” She married George Cooper in 1987, and they remain together to this day.           

I grew up with Winnie-the-Pooh, the Bobbsey Twins, and Nancy Drew, so I missed the bounty of Blume’s books, but what a feast she’s served: 14 children’s books; 10 young-adult books; four adult books; two collaborative short stories; and three nonfiction books. Of those 33 works, the most popular were published in the 1970s, her most productive decade, and include Tales of a Fourth-Grade Nothing (1972), which recounts an elder brother’s envy of his younger sibling; Deenie (1973), which explains scoliosis and masturbation; Blubber (1974), which chronicles an overweight girl’s adolescence; and Forever… (1975), which famously deals with teenage sexuality and features a penis named “Ralph.”

That latter book has been a target of censorship for over 50 years. “I wrote it because my daughter wanted to read something where kids could have sex without either of them having to die,” said Blume. National Public Radio lists Forever… as one of the “100 Best-Ever Teen Novels.” Yet, to this day, it remains banned in Florida, the number-one state for book banning. (Ironically, Blume has a home in Key West, where she co-owns a bookstore in which no books are banned.)

The celebrated author’s most famous book is the 1970 story of a little girl who shares her intimate secrets with God, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, which has sold millions and remains Blume’s favorite. More than five decades after its publication, the preteen novel is still banned in some schools because it addresses menstruation. By the 1990s, seven Blume books were on the American Library Association’s list of the 100 most banned books in America — again because, in them, the author addresses topics such as sexuality, fat-shaming, divorce, and bullying.           

Throughout her career, Blume has fought hard to protect her work. She challenged school boards on their bans, testified in court, disputed religious groups that denounced her, and always cheered the librarians and booksellers who supported her. At times, the criticism was ferocious. On the TV show “Crossfire,” conservative commentator Pat Buchanan asked her, “What is this preoccupation with sex in books for 10-year-old children?” Blume smiled. “Are you hung up on masturbation?” she retorted.

When Blume was not writing, she bought houses in New Mexico, Martha’s Vineyard, London, Florida, and New York. Then she redecorated them. “The truth is I’m a houseaholic,” she told Architectural Digest. “I love to create a new nest.”

Now that Blume has retired, she’s been blessed with an adoring biographer. “I’m a life-long fan,” admits Oppenheimer. And while Judy Blume will never rival Boswell’s tome on Samuel Johnson, it’s a 480-page paean that should earn him a front-row seat in “Blume world.”

Kitty Kelley is the author of seven number-one New York Times bestseller biographies, including Nancy Reagan, Jackie Oh!, and Elizabeth Taylor: The Last Star. She is on the board of the Independent and is a recipient of the PEN Oakland/Gary Webb Anti-Censorship Award. In 2023, she was honored with the Biographers International Organization’s BIO Award, which is given annually to a writer who has made major contributions to the advancement of the art and craft of biography.