Judy Blume : a life / Mark Oppenheimer.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

The highly anticipated biography of one of the world's most treasured literary voices, showcasing a life as triumphant and inspiring as the stories she crafted.

To know the name Judy Blume is to know and love literature. Her influential novels turned classics--including Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret ; Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing ; Deenie ; and Summer Sisters --touched the lives of tens of millions of readers. For more than fifty-five years her work has done something revolutionary: it rewired the world's expectations of what literature for young people can be--frank, candid, earthy, and unafraid to show the messier sides of humanity. But little is known about the real woman behind the iconic persona, and the unlikely journey of her literary ascension, until now.

In Judy Blume , journalist, historian, and longtime Blume aficionado Mark Oppenheimer pens a beautiful, multidimensional portrait of the acclaimed author through extensive interviews with Blume herself, invaluable access to her papers and correspondence, and thoughtful analysis of Blume's beloved novels, including early, unpublished works that shed light on the pathbreaking writer she would become. Oppenheimer goes deep, exploring Blume's middle-class 1950s upbringing, complicated childhood, varied relationships and marriages, unabashed sexual experiences, bouts of heartache and loss, and enduring legacy as a champion of free speech and contemporary literature. Oppenheimer peels back the curtain to reveal the woman behind the literary empire in all her complex, multifaceted glory--a true gift for anyone who grew up reading and loving these extraordinary books.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Kirkus Book Review

Yes, she's there. FromAre You There, God? It's Me, Margaret (1970) through a string of novels featuring both children and adolescent characters, Judy Blume has made personal development and social conflict the core of her work. This biography by Oppenheimer--a scholar and author, most recently ofSquirrel Hill: The Tree of Life Synagogue Shooting and the Soul of a Neighborhood--traces Blume's literary development, from her childhood in a secular Jewish home in New Jersey, through marriages, children, divorce, and remarriage, to her aspirations to be the next Dr. Seuss. The book paints a picture of a diligent, driven writer seeking a unique voice. We get a year-by-year (at times, almost day-by-day) chronicle of Blume's balancing of home life and motherhood with imaginative writing. We get insights into the publishing process, too, through the correspondence she had with editors and publishers and through the many reviews of her books. Blume changed young people's literature. Oppenheimer writes, "As libraries, booksellers, and classrooms accepted the new realism of the YA literature--so good for generating bookstore profits, so successful at getting children to read in school and check books out of the library--they were primed to welcome the same kind of realism for even younger readers." Blume's books often met with criticism from parents and librarians who wanted safer stuff. But we see little of this conflict in this relentlessly upbeat biography. Blume emerges as a hard-working, ambitious, successful writer. Each book was welcomed by her readers. "She was shooting arrows to their hearts, again and again," Oppenheimer writes. Her books taught generations to love to read. More importantly, they taught generations of young people to love themselves. A buoyant biography of a writer who redefined young people's literature. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.