It was in this decade that Blume became an advocate for the fight against censorship and joined the National Coalition Against Censorship () which defends the right to read. Pictured above: Blume with her husband, George Cooper.ĭuring the 1980’s, many of Judy’s books came under fire for language and sexuality and were banned from school libraries. Recently, Blume wrote a novel for adults, In the Unlikely Event, which explores how a tragedy can affect families for generations and was released in 2015. She is currently in her third marriage with former law professor, George Cooper, and they reside in Key West, New York City, and Martha’s Vineyard. She has battled cancer twice, most recently in 2012. In 1975 Judy Blume divorced her husband and remarried a physicist named Thomas Kitchens, but the second marriage didn’t last long, and she was divorced again by 1980.

Pictured above: The 1977 jacket photo for “Starring Sally J. Tiger Eyes was later made into a movie in 2012. In the 1980’s, she wrote the adult novel Smart Women and other books for the younger readers such as, Superfudge, Tiger Eyes, and Just as Long as We’re Together. Blume often used a first person narrative with controversial language and characters with whom the younger tweens and teens could identify in order to explore these issues. These Judy Blume books dealt with sensitive issues for teenagers such as childhood angst, body image, sexuality, and divorce. Freedman as Herself, and Wifey during the 1970’s. She went on to write Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, Deenie, Blubber, Forever, Starring Sally J. But it was Judy Blume’s honest coming-of-age story, written in a first person narrative from the view of a young adolescent girl, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, that gained her success as a leading voice for young readers in the 1970’s. She began her writing career in the 1960’s by taking a writing course at NYU and wrote for several years with many rejections until 1969 when her first illustrated children’s book was published, The One in the Middle Is the Green Kangaroo, and her first novel, Iggie’s House, in 1970 quickly followed. in education from New York University in 1961, and gave birth to two children, Randy and Lawrence Blume. Judy married an attorney, John Blume, in 1959, graduated with a B. Judy attended an all-girls high school and always loved reading and making up her own stories. Her father was a dentist and her mother was a homemaker who encouraged her daughter to explore her creative energies through piano playing, dance lessons, and reading. Author Judy Blume was born on Februin Elizabeth, New Jersey to Rudolph and Esther Sussman.

Deenie by Judy Blume