Judy Blume

This biography traces the life and career of Judy Blume, whose books for children, young adults, and adults transformed expectations for what literature for young people could address.

Judith Marcia Sussman was born on February 12, 1938, in Elizabeth, New Jersey, to Rudolph "Rudy" Sussman, a dentist, and Esther "Essie" Sussman, a homemaker. The family was middle-class, Jewish, close-knit, and culturally progressive. Judy grew up loving books but never imagining she would become a writer. Her childhood was shaped by her father's warmth and her mother's anxiety, by the early deaths of multiple Sussman relatives, and by her older brother David's social difficulties, which left Judy feeling pressure to be the happy, compliant child. When she was eight, Essie moved the children to Miami Beach for two years to treat David's kidney infection. There, the formerly shy Judy became outgoing and adventurous, but she also developed intense anxiety about her father dying, making ritualistic bargains with God to keep him safe, a habit that prefigures the conversations with God in Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.

Back in Elizabeth, Judy formed a tight group of girlfriends, the Pre-Teen Kittens, who talked openly about puberty, boys, and menstruation. She had early sexual experiences with a friend during sixth-grade sleepovers, encounters she never felt ashamed of. She thrived at Battin High School, an all-girls school where she read voraciously, discovering adult novelists like John O'Hara and Saul Bellow, whose frank treatments of sexuality and adolescence later influenced her own writing. Though sophisticated in her reading, Judy did not contemplate her future beyond the expected path of marriage and motherhood.

At NYU, she majored in elementary education and met John Blume, a lawyer six and a half years her senior. They became engaged quickly. In July 1959, less than a month before the wedding, Judy's father died of a heart attack while she held his hand. The family rabbi insisted the wedding proceed, and Essie forbade any display of grief. Judy married John on August 15 in a bittersweet ceremony. The early years of marriage were difficult: Judy had chronic skin ailments and serious illness, while John proved emotionally distant. Their daughter Randy was born in 1961, and their son Larry in 1963.

Settled in Scotch Plains, New Jersey, Judy found suburban motherhood stifling. At 28, she began searching for creative outlets, first making felt wall hangings she sold at Bloomingdale's, then trying songwriting. In 1967, she enrolled in Lee Wyndham's evening class on writing for children at NYU. Wyndham, a Russian-born former fashion model and children's books editor, became Judy's first mentor, encouraging her to abandon rhyming picture books and write realistic stories. Judy completed The One in the Middle Is the Green Kangaroo, a short book about a middle child, and began Iggie's House, a novel about a Black family moving into an all-white neighborhood, inspired by the 1967 Newark riots.

After earlier manuscripts were rejected, Reilly and Lee accepted Green Kangaroo in January 1969. Shortly after, editor Dick Jackson at the small Bradbury Press read Iggie's House and became Judy's second great mentor, teaching her to revise deeply and challenging her on character and structure. He published Iggie's House in 1970, and when Judy sent him the manuscript of Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret, Jackson and his partner Robert Verrone were astounded. Published in October 1970, Margaret told the story of a sixth-grade girl navigating menstruation, breast development, first crushes, and an interfaith family, all in an intimate first-person voice. The New York Times praised it warmly, and its frank treatment of the developing female body paralleled the cultural moment that also produced Our Bodies, Ourselves.

What followed was an extraordinary burst of productivity. By 1974, Judy had published 10 books in five years, including Then Again, Maybe I Won't, about a pubescent boy navigating wet dreams and erections; Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, featuring the irrepressible toddler Fudge; Blubber, a morally complex novel about bullying in which the bully goes unpunished; and Deenie, about a girl with scoliosis who masturbates. Her success coincided with the emergence of young adult literature as a marketing category, the paperback revolution that made books affordable in mall bookstores, and a growing appetite among children and librarians for realistic fiction.

In 1975, Judy published Forever . . ., depicting a teenage couple having responsible, consequence-free sex. That same year, she asked John for a divorce, driven by unhappiness, her identification with feminism through Ms. magazine, and a galvanizing encounter on an airplane with Tom Kitchens, a physicist. The divorce was finalized in January 1976. Judy moved with her children to London to join Tom, whom she married that May, but she already sensed the marriage was a mistake. Tom was rigid and possessive. After a few months in London, the family relocated to Los Alamos, New Mexico. There, Judy wrote Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself, her most autobiographical novel, and Wifey, her first adult novel about a bored suburban housewife's sexual adventures. Wifey became a massive bestseller despite mostly negative reviews. By the summer of 1979, Judy resolved to end the marriage and asked Tom to leave.

In December 1979, Judy met George Cooper, a Columbia Law School professor, on a blind date arranged by George's ex-wife Jill Cooper. They fell in love immediately, and George moved in with Judy. Over the following years, they built a life together in Manhattan, Martha's Vineyard, and eventually Key West, Florida, marrying in 1987.

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Judy continued to publish steadily, including Tiger Eyes, a dark young adult novel set in Los Alamos; Smart Women, a second adult novel about divorced mothers in Colorado; and several Fudge sequels. She also became a prominent anti-censorship advocate as the rise of the Christian right, including Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority, fueled challenges to her books in schools and libraries across the country. She worked closely with the National Coalition Against Censorship and appeared frequently on television to defend free speech. In 1998, she published Summer Sisters, a novel about a decades-long friendship between two women set on Martha's Vineyard. The book became a bestseller and remains among her most beloved works.

In 2009, while attending the Key West Literary Seminar, Judy was struck by a sudden memory of three plane crashes in Elizabeth during the winter of 1951-52, which killed 116 people. She spent years researching and writing what became In the Unlikely Event, her final and most complex novel. In 2012, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a mastectomy. In the Unlikely Event was published in 2015 to strong reviews. In 2016, Judy and George opened Books & Books, a nonprofit bookstore in Key West. In August 2018, director Kelly Fremon Craig approached Judy about adapting Margaret into a film. That November, George was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer; he underwent surgery and chemotherapy and eventually recovered. Dick Jackson, Judy's beloved editor, died in October 2019. John Blume died in 2020, and Judy's brother David died in 2021.

The Margaret movie, produced by James L. Brooks and starring Abby Ryder Fortson as Margaret, opened in April 2023 to excellent reviews but disappointing box office, with the audience skewing heavily toward women over 45. The documentary Judy Blume Forever began streaming the same month. Judy also faced brief controversy when a Sunday Times interview quoted her expressing support for J. K. Rowling regarding the abuse Rowling received for her views on trans issues; Judy issued a statement supporting the trans community and calling the reporting misleading. As of 2024, at 86, Judy continues to work at her bookstore, correspond with readers, and advocate for free speech, with multiple new adaptations of her works in development.