Rachelle Bergstein is the author of the new book The Genius of Judy: How Judy Blume Rewrote Childhood for All of Us. Bergstein's other books include Women from the Ankle Down. She lives in Brooklyn.
Q: What inspired you to write this book about the author Judy Blume?
A: Let’s start with the obvious: I LOVE Judy Blume. That’s the foundation of any good nonfiction book idea, at least for me — what do I want to spend the next two to three years thinking and reading and writing and talking about?
But a few things came together around the time that I was writing the proposal for The Genius of Judy in early 2022 that made it feel especially relevant.
For one thing, Judy was starting to have an undeniable cultural moment. Her documentary had been announced (Judy Blume Forever, which came out in 2023) as well as the long-awaited film adaptation of Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.
People were starting to gush on social media and publish reverential think pieces about the impact Judy Blume had on their lives.
Then, in June 2022, Roe v. Wade was overturned. Book challenges were accelerating across the country. To me, Judy’s position as a champion of women’s bodily autonomy as well as First Amendment rights made her the perfect subject for a book that might serve as a counterpoint to the national conservatism that was very quickly taking hold.
Q: What would you say are some of the most common perceptions and misconceptions about Judy Blume and her work?
A: The misperception that followed Judy through much of her career was that her work was overly simple, or un-nuanced, or somehow not sufficiently nourishing for kids. Almost from the time she started publishing books for kids ages 8 and up she was followed by the criticism that her books were “not literary.”
Now, I understand that argument from the standpoint that her prose is very pared down and, for lack of a better word, digestible. But just because her books feature regular kids doing regular things, it doesn’t mean they aren’t valuable. On the contrary, Judy tucks a ton of important information and life lessons in books about normal children and adolescents.
Blume isn’t a showy, stylistic writer, like Madeleine L’Engle (who wrote A Wrinkle in Time) or Lucy Maud Montgomery (who wrote Anne of Green Gables), but she’s able to be quite risky and subversive within the bounds of her accessible prose.
Q: The author Isaac Butler said of the book, “The Genius of Judy interlaces biography, textual analysis, and cultural history so deftly and so entertainingly that you don’t even realize how much you’re learning while you enjoy it.” What do you think of that assessment, and how did you blend the various elements of the book as you were writing it?
A: Well, of course I love this blurb. I really admire Isaac’s work and so feeling like he got what I was trying to do with this book meant a lot to me.
I always thought of Genius as a hybrid-genre book: half biography and half cultural history, with a sprinkle of lit crit on top.
Partly that’s just how I think — I get fired up, in a good way, when I’m grabbing from different areas of research and reporting and challenging myself to weave them all together — but I also felt like the best way to add value to the existing conversation about Judy Blume was to position her most beloved books within their historical context.
Going into this project, I knew that so many people, and particularly women, adored Judy Blume. It was important to me to investigate why she’s had such a lasting impact, to the point that the mere mention of her name makes people emotional.
To do that, I explored every avenue I could, from visiting her archives at Yale to talking to experts in topics like children’s book publishing and sex ed.
Q: What do you hope readers take away from the book, especially given the current political climate?
A: Oof, well, I’ve developed a go-to phrase when I’m talking about this project and what I want people to take away from it: Let the kids read. Judy’s books were frequently challenged and banned throughout her career and now the fever for book banning is gripping big parts of this country again.
There are a lot of things to worry about raising children in the 21st century (I’m the mother of a 9-year-old, so I get it) but if you ask me, books aren’t one of them.
Books light up the imagination. In our fast-paced, quick-to-judge world, they teach much-needed strengths like patience and empathy. Books can change people’s lives. Let the kids read!
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I’m working on an idea for a new book that would pick up the feminist movement where this one leaves off, in the 1980s, when the argument over censorship and pornography reached a very intense pitch.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: I really encourage everyone to revisit the books that they loved as children, Judy Blume or otherwise. Reading Judy’s books through adult eyes was so illuminating for me. I noticed things about them that flew way over my head as a kid (the moms in particular are fascinating). I learned more about myself by recognizing the subjects and characters that spoke to me as a younger person.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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