Blume introduces us to the Hatcher parents and their polar opposite sons: Peter, the titular fourth grader who is well-meaning and eager to please, but not in an annoying way, and his little brother, Fudge, who is - to put it mildly - a human whirlwind, the kind of kid you’d never want to babysit for (despite his charm). But “Tales” is my favorite because it sets the scene so perfectly. One by one, the books started to come home from the school library: “The One in the Middle Is a Green Kangaroo,” “ Super Fudge,” “ Then Again, Maybe I Won’t,” “Iggie’s House.” By the time I spotted “ Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.” through the rearview mirror of my minivan, I knew the reader in the third row was closer to adolescence than she appeared.Īll the Fudge books - “Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing” (ages 8 to 12 published in 1972), “Superfudge,” “Fudge-a-Mania” and “Double Fudge” - should be required reading for people who struggle with complicated family dynamics. She elevated honesty to an art form.īy the time I had kids, Blume’s oeuvre was neatly packaged in box sets, but I resisted the urge to stockpile them, wanting my daughters and son to stumble upon her novels the way I did, as the need arose. Where stammering parents and mortified health teachers fumbled, Blume provided simple language for embarrassing and awkward conversations. The novels sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with “Forever” provided a crash course in change, uncertainty, loneliness and countless other scourges of adolescence. We treated our communal, beleaguered volume with the reverence of a treasured text that held the secrets of the universe - which, in a way, it did.īut sex isn’t the only subject that Gen Xers learned about from Judy Blume, who is now 84 years old. I wasn’t the only one! “ Forever” made the rounds at lunch tables and passages were whispered aloud at sleepovers (sheepishly or lasciviously, depending on the basement and how much time we had before “ Friday Night Videos” came on after midnight).
The first page of Chapter 12 was permanently dog-eared and the spine of the book was broken in such a way that the pages fell open to a sex scene, one I knew by heart. There, beneath coat-hanger mobiles spinning lazily from track lighting, you’d run your finger along a cool metal shelf - no need to consult the card catalog, this was familiar territory - until you came upon an oft-revisited, much-handled paperback of “ Forever,” by Judy Blume.
Once you had amassed enough index cards to complete an outline, you’d stroll over to the fiction section. In the library of my elementary school, there were orange-carpeted steps where you could lounge in your OshKosh B’Gosh overalls while consulting the World Book Encyclopedia for your report on Warren G.
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