Everything I Know About Being a Girl, I Learned From Judy Blume

Some books are just better by booklight and 3 a.m.

I'm no statistician, but I'm going to guess that in 75% of women's pasts, they've spent a few late nights huddled underneath the covers, reading a forbidden but juicy Judy Blume book by a flashlight (or booklight).

I know I'm no exception. Judy Blume pretty much wrote the book(s) on being a girl. When I saw a book titled "Everything I Needed To Know About Being a Girl I Learned From Judy Blume," I simply couldn't leave the store without it. The title alone sums it up perfectly.

Last night, true to my typical fashion, I couldn't sleep. When I can't sleep, out comes the books. Usually, I just turn on the lamp strategically placed beside my bed. But for some reason, I felt compelled to attach the small pink booklight that sits uselessly on my nightstand to the cover and read by the glow of a single, tiny LED bulb. I also felt compelled to set aside the interesting novel I'm currently in the middle of, and pick up the aforementioned Judy Blume homage.

As I sat there, staring at the title page, I couldn't help but laugh. This is exactly how most girls read a Judy Blume original.

Judy has managed to become one of the most challenged authors of all time. She isn't charged with the crime of promoting witchcraft like J.K. Rowling or religious sacrilege like Philip Pullman. She simply told prepubescent girls how it is when nobody else would.

The middle school and early high school years are notoriously tumultuous, and tv would to tell you that everybody has a wise mother or a cool aunt to assist you in navigating it. I'm here to tell you that not everyone does. My mother, while great and perfectly adequate, is definitely not nurturing and pretty much as embarrassed as I was. She was also an only child. No cool aunts.

So I turned to the one thing that had always worked for me before: books. I discovered Judy Blume in a random chance-grabbing at my middle school library, which is how many good things happen. But I discovered more than just something to read. I discovered my cool aunt and wise mom and best friends and beautiful reassurance all alphabetically arranged on the bottom shelf in the first row in the library.

Judy Blume knew all and knew how to make a confused twelve year old girl understand. No time in life is more embarrassing than puberty. There's not a soul alive that doesn't blush a little at just the word. But Judy made it alright. Judy made it alright for so many young girls.

Judy teaches the pitfalls of bras and boys and even God. Though she pisses a lot of people off (the audacity to suggest that it's okay for girls to masturbate or that going to your parents isn't always the best solution for bullying or that sometimes the heroine just doesn't get the guy), she teaches so many girls how to be girls, how to be women. Even though her books are banned so often, by libraries and over-protective parents alike, somehow anybody who wants the books somehow gets them and reads them surreptitiously under the covers.

Though I read almost all of her books in the course of my growing up, I never got around to reading Forever..., the most notorious Blume title (even more notorious than her refreshingly blunt and explicit novel intended for emotionally and sexually frustrated housewives). Often known as the The Sex Book, it simply tells the tale of a high school couple exploring the boundaries of their relationship, physically and mentally.

I don't think it's the sex scenes themselves that make people cringe at the content. The female lead, Katherine, has sex and nothing bad happens. She doesn't get pregnant, an STD, or become a raging sex addict. She satisfies her curiosity, and eventually, moves on. I'm sure this story plays out over and over in high schools all over the country. Judy Blume recognized this, and helped so many Katherines feel a little less alone.

Though life has yet to present me with that particular problem, I know I'll be just a little more prepared when it does. After all, I have Judy Blume in my corner.

Are You There God, It's Me Margaret affected me more soundly than almost any book I've ever read, and I read it in middle school. If I ever have a daughter, I will make sure she reads this book. But perhaps I'll leave it lying about, and let her experience it the way most girls have experienced Judy Blume--at 3 a.m. with a booklight and a sense of wonder.