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[CCBC-Net] Judy Blume (posting for Tanya Lee Stone)
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From: Jacqueline Woodson <jackiewoodsonfanmail>
Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2008 09:06:47 -0400
Wow -- talk about a life-altering author. As a sixth grader, the first thing I learned from Judy Blume was how to increase my chest size. (we must, we must) courtesy of"Are You There, God..." But that was only the beginning (okay, it didn't work but, whatever). I was growing up in a predominantly Black and Latino neighborhood on the edge of white flight (a few German families remained until their ships came in.) I thought Jews were some Old Testament people in our Christian bible and the closest I came to them was Charlton Heston parting the sea in The Ten Commandments. I didn't know what an all- white neighborhood looked like. I had no clue about suburbia. (Well, those two parts --I am Quite thankful for now!) But at the time, Judy showed me another world and a world I embraced simply because the teller in the story was just like me -- We were both flat-chested.
I too read "Forever" under covers, savoring every word. With Iggy's House, I wanted Iggy's story and didn't like that suddenly I was more Iggy than (Winnie?). It broke my heart to suddenly feel outside of a story but it is another reason I am a writer today -- trying to write against that feeling for other kids.
In so many ways, Judy saved my flat-chested butt from disappearing by giving voice to so much of what I was going through as a young person. And now, many years later, the mother of two half-Jewish kids, living in a very different place than the one I grew up in, I am so grateful for the timelessness of Judy's work - how even as we move forward and grow up into whoever we're becoming, we're becoming who we are because of these stories.
-Jacqueline Woodson
Received on Fri 03 Oct 2008 08:06:47 AM CDT
Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2008 09:06:47 -0400
Wow -- talk about a life-altering author. As a sixth grader, the first thing I learned from Judy Blume was how to increase my chest size. (we must, we must) courtesy of"Are You There, God..." But that was only the beginning (okay, it didn't work but, whatever). I was growing up in a predominantly Black and Latino neighborhood on the edge of white flight (a few German families remained until their ships came in.) I thought Jews were some Old Testament people in our Christian bible and the closest I came to them was Charlton Heston parting the sea in The Ten Commandments. I didn't know what an all- white neighborhood looked like. I had no clue about suburbia. (Well, those two parts --I am Quite thankful for now!) But at the time, Judy showed me another world and a world I embraced simply because the teller in the story was just like me -- We were both flat-chested.
I too read "Forever" under covers, savoring every word. With Iggy's House, I wanted Iggy's story and didn't like that suddenly I was more Iggy than (Winnie?). It broke my heart to suddenly feel outside of a story but it is another reason I am a writer today -- trying to write against that feeling for other kids.
In so many ways, Judy saved my flat-chested butt from disappearing by giving voice to so much of what I was going through as a young person. And now, many years later, the mother of two half-Jewish kids, living in a very different place than the one I grew up in, I am so grateful for the timelessness of Judy's work - how even as we move forward and grow up into whoever we're becoming, we're becoming who we are because of these stories.
-Jacqueline Woodson
Received on Fri 03 Oct 2008 08:06:47 AM CDT
