Diablo Cody Talks Judy Blume

I stumbled across an article for EW penned by Oscar winning wordsmith Diablo Cody the other day and I actually enjoy it very much, so I thought I would give you a “heads up”. That’s what you expect from me, right?

Moving on. Diablo has kindly taken the time to put together a very nice tribute to children’s book scribbler Judy Blume. As someone who read a heap of Blume’s work when I was growing up, I thoroughly enjoyed taking a trip down memory lane…

I grew up devouring the Blume canon at our woefully small public library. The covers were hazy illustrations that evoked Playtex bra ads from the ’70s; the pages had been worn pulpy-soft by a thousand juvenile thumbs. But the first book I read of Blume’s was not one of her infamous adolescent sagas. It was a kiddie story called Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, which nonetheless seemed so exotic to me it might as well have been a Macedonian travelogue.

The story might have been about Peter Hatcher and his incorrigible baby brother, but I was more interested in the setting than the sibling rivalry. They lived in New York City! They played in Central Park! Their building had an elevator operator! Aside from those thrilling details, I related to Peter’s youthful nihilism. At 9 years old, he already identified as the titular “nothing.” He was Alvy Singer in saddle shoes. Every other book written for kids my age was sunny, upbeat, and about as subtle as a bullhorn-wielding camp counselor. Blume’s stuff had an edge; it was grimly hilarious and worthy of my attention.

And remember Blubber?

Then there’s Blubber, a book that seems more relevant than ever in the age of online taunting and MySpace suicides. Seriously, Lars von Trier couldn’t have crafted a more harrowing tale of female suffering. The protagonist, Jill, is an average kid, a picky eater from Pennsylvania who is neither excessively kind nor cruel. Almost accidentally, she joins a ring of bullies who ritually torment a chubby girl named Linda. Instead of making Linda repulsive or saintly, Blume’s victim is as ordinary as the girls who tease her. I didn’t know whom to relate to as I read Blubber; I wanted to believe that I wasn’t like Jill, but at the same time, Linda was infuriatingly weak. The book, unlike others written for girls my age, refused to tell me how to feel. And yet, looking back, it’s rich with revealing symbolism. (In one scene, Linda comes to school dressed as Little Red Riding Hood. Out come the wolves, indeed.)

Oddly enough, a friend of mine located her childhood copy of Blubber and had it lying around her house when I visited a few months ago, so I read it over the afternoon and it’s still fresh in my mind. Lars von Trier indeed!

The whole article is a pleasant read for a Friday afternoon, so as the Beastie Boys so sagely advised – ch-check it out.

PS: I wish someone would start talking up the Trixie Belden books. Was I the only one who read them as a little tacker?

MORE: Diablo Cody: In Praise of Judy Blume