Latest / Stuff You Should Know / The Beloved Judy Blume

Transcript

The Beloved Judy Blume · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio.
0:11
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's
0:14
Speaker 2: Chuck and it's just us. Jerry's on vacation actually as usual,
0:19
Speaker 2: and this is stuff.
0:20
Speaker 1: You should not. Have you read any Judy Bloom books.
0:26
Speaker 2: Yes, I've read a bunch of them. I was going
0:27
Speaker 2: down the list checking off the ones I've read.
0:29
Speaker 1: Oh, interesting, me too. I had a feeling you hadn't
0:32
Speaker 1: for some.
0:32
Speaker 2: Reason, because I'm soulless and robotic.
0:37
Speaker 1: Meet Mark. Yeah, I bet you. We've read a lot
0:41
Speaker 1: of the same one. So let's go over that.
0:42
Speaker 2: I bet too. All right, now, okay, you ready, Yeah,
0:45
Speaker 2: we'll say them all at the same time.
0:47
Speaker 1: Now you say yours, and I'll say whether that's one
0:49
Speaker 1: of mine?
0:50
Speaker 2: All right?
0:51
Speaker 1: Freckle Juice did not read that one?
0:53
Speaker 2: I did? It was a good one. I'm going to
0:56
Speaker 2: say that about all of them. Tales of a fourth
0:58
Speaker 2: grade nothing.
0:58
Speaker 1: I did read that.
1:00
Speaker 2: I did two, but I didn't remember what that was about,
1:02
Speaker 2: and I didn't go look it up. Okay, otherwise known
1:06
Speaker 2: as Sheila the Great.
1:07
Speaker 1: I read that.
1:08
Speaker 2: That was a good one, blubbers the one aside from
1:11
Speaker 2: are you there? God? It's me, Margaret that I remember
1:14
Speaker 2: the most.
1:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, I read both of those, and then I think
1:17
Speaker 1: that was it for me, all right. I think I
1:20
Speaker 1: read all the I read. Then again, maybe I won't, Okay,
1:24
Speaker 1: And I also read Superfudge.
1:28
Speaker 2: Oh I did too. I'm sorry I did too. I
1:30
Speaker 2: read Superfudge.
1:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I think I read six or seven of these.
1:34
Speaker 2: And I had a question mark next to then again,
1:36
Speaker 2: maybe I won't. I may have read that one, or
1:38
Speaker 2: I just may have been aware of it.
1:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, And then the one what is it? Tiger Eyes?
1:43
Speaker 1: Sounded familiar, but I'm not sure if I read those,
1:46
Speaker 1: but I think it, like, you know. One reason I
1:47
Speaker 1: wanted to ask because I think Judy Bloom and her
1:50
Speaker 1: books get associated with young girls. Sure, and I was like,
1:54
Speaker 1: was I an outlier because I read six or seven
1:56
Speaker 1: Judy Bloom books and like loved them all? Or you know,
1:59
Speaker 1: maybe both out liars.
2:01
Speaker 2: I don't think so. I don't remember being particularly odd
2:04
Speaker 2: or weird, at least in my elementary school, so the
2:07
Speaker 2: fact that you did too, I would guess it was
2:10
Speaker 2: probably fairly normal. I also read a lot of Ramona
2:13
Speaker 2: Quimby books. Did you read any of those? Now?
2:15
Speaker 1: I never read those.
2:16
Speaker 2: I knew that the day I became at an adolescent,
2:20
Speaker 2: I guess, uh huh, because that was halfway through a
2:23
Speaker 2: Ramona Quimby book, You're Seven, and I realized I didn't
2:26
Speaker 2: give a good damn what was about to come next
2:30
Speaker 2: in Ramona Quimby's life. All of a.
2:31
Speaker 1: Sudden, Oh no, that was it for me and Ramona.
2:35
Speaker 2: I always have fond memories of her. Those were great
2:38
Speaker 2: fun books.
2:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I think it's cool that we both read
2:40
Speaker 1: this stuff that our parents were. My suspicion is that
2:45
Speaker 1: it was the same in my house, is that they
2:47
Speaker 1: weren't paying attention enough, probably to say, hey, should you
2:50
Speaker 1: be reading this book about, you know, a young girl
2:53
Speaker 1: going through menstruation and discovering her sexual awakening?
2:57
Speaker 2: Right exactly? My parents paid enough attention. I remember my
3:00
Speaker 2: dad like some tense conversations I barely overheard. The only
3:04
Speaker 2: word I could make out was fruity.
3:07
Speaker 1: Oh man, goodness me.
3:09
Speaker 2: He was a real jerk. Grow now.
3:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, here we are, though, well adjusted and kicking
3:15
Speaker 1: button life.
3:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, it's great. Is I can't wait to
3:18
Speaker 2: get the one or two emails really like that was
3:20
Speaker 2: really mean of your dad to call.
3:22
Speaker 1: You fruity, right, yeah, get some support.
3:25
Speaker 2: Right, he didn't. Really everybody, is what I'm trying to say. Okay,
3:29
Speaker 2: I think you make a great point though, Chuck, Like
3:31
Speaker 2: I think it's whether it's normal or not. I feel
3:35
Speaker 2: like it was great that we read those books. They
3:37
Speaker 2: were great books to start with, totally, but also like,
3:41
Speaker 2: it's just so rare for an adult to have that
3:44
Speaker 2: level of insight into what it's like to be a
3:47
Speaker 2: kid growing into well an adolescent again, right, that's just
3:53
Speaker 2: people have memories of that. I have memories of it,
3:55
Speaker 2: but the vibe, the feeling and being able to convey
3:58
Speaker 2: it again, that is long gone.
4:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, I totally agree.
4:02
Speaker 2: So she was good at what she did and she
4:05
Speaker 2: was a trailblazing pioneer of the first kind.
4:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally. And when you say was Judy Bloom amazingly
4:15
Speaker 1: is still with us in her late eighties, living down
4:18
Speaker 1: in Key West, but I think she's basically given up writing.
4:23
Speaker 1: She hasn't put out a book in a while. She
4:25
Speaker 1: does run a bookstore down in Key West, which I
4:28
Speaker 1: would love to go to sometime.
4:30
Speaker 2: I wish I had known the one time I went
4:32
Speaker 2: to Key West, because I definitely would have popped in
4:34
Speaker 2: to see her.
4:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, so today we salute Judy Bloom. And I guess
4:37
Speaker 1: let's go back to her childhood. Sure, because she was
4:41
Speaker 1: born Judith Marcia Sussman on February second, nineteen thirty eight
4:46
Speaker 1: in Elizabeth, New Jersey, just outside of New York, and
4:50
Speaker 1: grew up in a pretty just normal, middle class Jewish family.
4:54
Speaker 1: Her dad was a dentist, her mom was a homemaker,
4:57
Speaker 1: and she you know, seemed to have a I was
5:01
Speaker 1: about to say, a happy life. But she was a
5:04
Speaker 1: fraught kid about some stuff. But not because she had
5:07
Speaker 1: like some awful life. It was a pretty normal life,
5:09
Speaker 1: but a lot of angst.
5:10
Speaker 2: It seems like, yeah, I'm fairly well earned. I feel like, yeah,
5:16
Speaker 2: for sure, but not because her family dynamic was screwed up.
5:19
Speaker 2: It was like her father was her confidant. Yeah, her
5:23
Speaker 2: entire childhood sounds like a really good father. I didn't
5:27
Speaker 2: get the impression that her mom was anything terrible, but
5:31
Speaker 2: I think her father played a more prominent role.
5:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think such a But what her.
5:35
Speaker 2: Mom gave her was the gift of loving to read,
5:39
Speaker 2: which is man, there are a few gifts you can
5:42
Speaker 2: give a kid better than.
5:43
Speaker 1: That, you know, yeah, no kidding. And I know you
5:45
Speaker 1: and I have talked about this privately, but you know,
5:47
Speaker 1: when Ruby was diagnosed with dyslexia, we were both as
5:51
Speaker 1: avid readers, just you know, sort of afraid that meant
5:54
Speaker 1: she wouldn't have that joy. And she's gotten over it
5:57
Speaker 1: to the point where she's an avid reader and it
5:59
Speaker 1: just makes it so happy. And you always wonder what
6:02
Speaker 1: your kid's going to be like. And when I was
6:03
Speaker 1: reading about young Judy Bloom making up stories like life
6:08
Speaker 1: stories and backstories for her dolls and playthings and creating
6:11
Speaker 1: characters and scenarios, like Ruby does a lot of that stuff,
6:15
Speaker 1: and I'm always wondering if, like you know, she'd writes
6:18
Speaker 1: stories and stuff like is that her path? And like
6:21
Speaker 1: who knows, But you know, just like Judy Bloom, they
6:24
Speaker 1: both had these active or have these active kind of
6:29
Speaker 1: make believe lives, which I think is super cool and
6:32
Speaker 1: healthy and awesome.
6:34
Speaker 2: Yeah. The thing that stuck out to me was that
6:36
Speaker 2: she would take piano lessons and then whilst she was
6:39
Speaker 2: practicing the piano herself, she in her head she was
6:43
Speaker 2: teaching imaginary students like characters. I love that she was
6:47
Speaker 2: giving them piano lessons yeah, and you know that's pretty
6:50
Speaker 2: cool in and of itself. She actually kept a journal
6:52
Speaker 2: a notebook to chart their progress the imaginary student. She
6:56
Speaker 2: was teaching progress in her notebook, like that's how we're
7:00
Speaker 2: find her imagination was as far as character development goes
7:04
Speaker 2: as a kid.
7:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's super cool. And that reminded me and again
7:09
Speaker 1: not to just keep bringing Ruby into it. But I
7:11
Speaker 1: know you're a fan, so you don't mind. Yeah. But
7:14
Speaker 1: when I took her to her first Hawks game when
7:16
Speaker 1: she was like eight or nine, maybe she sat there
7:21
Speaker 1: and I don't think I've told this before, but she
7:23
Speaker 1: I looked and she brought her a little notebook like
7:24
Speaker 1: she always does, just in case she gets bored, and
7:26
Speaker 1: she was keeping notes. And finally was like, what are
7:28
Speaker 1: you noting? And she had noted all the players and
7:32
Speaker 1: all of their shoes and what brand and what color
7:34
Speaker 1: shoes they had, and what number they were and everything.
7:37
Speaker 1: And I just thought, what an interesting thing to do that.
7:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I was never into that kind of
7:44
Speaker 2: thing now, so I yeah, I feel like I'm definitely
7:47
Speaker 2: looking at it from the outside in.
7:49
Speaker 1: Yeah. I just you know, when you're a parent, you're
7:51
Speaker 1: always like, what does that mean? And like maybe one
7:54
Speaker 1: day I'll look back and go like, oh it all
7:55
Speaker 1: makes sense now or whatever. Sure, maybe she'll be an
7:58
Speaker 1: inventory or something. Yeah, what's it called when you manage.
8:06
Speaker 2: Logistics?
8:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, logistics.
8:08
Speaker 2: She'll be in charge of logistics of moving basketball players
8:11
Speaker 2: around the country. Great, Yeah that's cool. That's a great story.
8:16
Speaker 2: And yeah, I can't quite get it either. I mean,
8:19
Speaker 2: is it like a calming thing?
8:21
Speaker 1: I don't know, I have no idea.
8:23
Speaker 2: Well, let me know when you figure it out.
8:26
Speaker 1: Like twenty years probably.
8:28
Speaker 2: So even though Judy Bloom was like she came up
8:33
Speaker 2: with characters and had a very rich internal life as
8:38
Speaker 2: a kid, she apparently never particularly aspired to be a writer.
8:42
Speaker 2: She ended up wanting to find essentially like a creative
8:46
Speaker 2: outlet later on, as we'll see. But as a kid
8:49
Speaker 2: that wasn't she wouldn't like, that's what I'm going to
8:51
Speaker 2: be as a writer. And so that comes later in
8:55
Speaker 2: between then and now. But the opposite, so now would
9:01
Speaker 2: be while she was a child, then would be as
9:04
Speaker 2: she's grown up a little more. Oh man, you said
9:08
Speaker 2: that she had a kind of a fraught childhood, and
9:10
Speaker 2: as a result of that, she definitely suffered from anxiety
9:13
Speaker 2: as a kid. And this is like nineteen fifties anxiety,
9:16
Speaker 2: so like the real deal kind where you saw like
9:18
Speaker 2: a psychoanalyst sometimes.
9:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, certainly starting out in the forties when you're a
9:23
Speaker 1: little kid, especially a Jewish American kid, and World War
9:26
Speaker 1: II is going around, there was a big preoccupation in
9:30
Speaker 1: her family and you know, every probably Jewish American kid's
9:32
Speaker 1: life about what was going on overseas, afraid that could
9:36
Speaker 1: happen to them and their family, that kind of thing.
9:39
Speaker 1: And then really, this is so sad. She was always
9:41
Speaker 1: just worried about her father dying because a couple of
9:44
Speaker 1: her uncles died when they were younger, in their early
9:47
Speaker 1: forties of heart attacks I guess heart failure. Yeah, and
9:51
Speaker 1: she was just always worried about her dad, and you
9:54
Speaker 1: know doing kid stuff like you know, making a deal
9:57
Speaker 1: with God, like hey, if I ace this test, it'll
10:00
Speaker 1: help my dad live. And just it's just so sort
10:03
Speaker 1: of heartbreaking to hear that stuff.
10:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, and if that sounds a little familiar, then you
10:07
Speaker 2: probably have read are you there, God, it's me Margaret. Yeah.
10:11
Speaker 2: So yeah, that was a big deal. Like that kind
10:13
Speaker 2: of guided her outlook, and that's a lot to worry
10:17
Speaker 2: about as a little kid, right, totally. H So another
10:21
Speaker 2: thing that happened. Remember I said her dad was like
10:22
Speaker 2: one of her biggest, most prominent figures in her entire
10:26
Speaker 2: life as a kid. There were two years where she
10:30
Speaker 2: and her mom and brother moved to Miami Beach because
10:33
Speaker 2: her brother had suffered some sort of chronic illness I believe,
10:38
Speaker 2: and they were like, go to Miami apparently the one
10:40
Speaker 2: hundred and ten percent humidity will be good.
10:43
Speaker 1: Yeah.
10:44
Speaker 2: And her father stayed back in Elizabeth, New Jersey because
10:46
Speaker 2: he was a dentist, so he had to stay dentisting. Yeah,
10:52
Speaker 2: and that separation apparently was so significant that she developed
10:56
Speaker 2: an obsessive compulsive disorder. Only would she, like you said,
11:01
Speaker 2: kind of make deals with God. She would, you know,
11:05
Speaker 2: maybe turn a door knob handle X number of times,
11:07
Speaker 2: and as long as she remembered to do that, her
11:09
Speaker 2: father would stay alive. Like that kind of stuff. Again,
11:12
Speaker 2: we're talking about a kid who's less than ten years old.
11:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a lot to take on. It just made
11:19
Speaker 1: me real sad to hear that. But she also had
11:22
Speaker 1: a few and you know, as we'll see, she wrote
11:25
Speaker 1: a lot about stuff that she knew either places where
11:28
Speaker 1: she lived, or about things that were you know, like
11:30
Speaker 1: you said, and are you there, God it to me
11:32
Speaker 1: Margaret kind of writing about that. She also wrote later
11:35
Speaker 1: in life about a family who experienced these three plane
11:39
Speaker 1: crashes sort of near their house that affected their household,
11:42
Speaker 1: and that really happened to her, right.
11:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, over the course of fifty eight days,
11:47
Speaker 2: less than two months, there were three separate plane crashes
11:52
Speaker 2: from the Newark Airport, which apparently was like right there
11:56
Speaker 2: that the runways were pointed essentially at Elizabeth. Yeah, and
12:01
Speaker 2: a hundred people died from those three crashes, eleven of
12:06
Speaker 2: which were like neighbors, friends and neighbors, like townfolk from
12:10
Speaker 2: Elizabeth who had been on the ground in the wrong
12:12
Speaker 2: place at the wrong time.
12:14
Speaker 1: Yeah. So that's obviously gonna you know, color young kids, psyche,
12:18
Speaker 1: you know for sure.
12:19
Speaker 2: I mean, what are the odds of something like that happening.
12:23
Speaker 2: I guess it was bad enough that they closed the
12:25
Speaker 2: Newark Airport for a year and rebuilt the runway so
12:28
Speaker 2: that they weren't pointed at Elizabeth anymore.
12:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's terrible.
12:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, So all those things together certainly like shaped her childhood,
12:38
Speaker 2: her pre adolescence.
12:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think so.
12:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then she like kind of grew up, like
12:44
Speaker 2: her life was pretty normal nineteen fifties early nineteen sixties
12:49
Speaker 2: type life, although she was a little more on the
12:52
Speaker 2: alternative side. It looks like it sounds like she was
12:54
Speaker 2: a bit of a beatnik.
12:56
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think she gravitated towards that, like when she graduated,
12:59
Speaker 1: and she graduated, you know, high school, at the top
13:01
Speaker 1: of her class, and then went to NYU, and then
13:03
Speaker 1: there in the fifties at NYU, it sounds like she
13:05
Speaker 1: was definitely kind of slanted toward that bohemian culture and
13:09
Speaker 1: drawn to the beatnik types.
13:10
Speaker 2: Yes, she was hanging with Llewell and Davis.
13:15
Speaker 1: Should we take a break, Yeah, all right, we'll take
13:17
Speaker 1: an earlier break. It seems like a good college seems
13:20
Speaker 1: like a good breaking point to me. Oh, I agree,
13:22
Speaker 1: all right, we'll be right back.
13:42
Speaker 2: So we're back, Chuck and Judy Bloom is stuck in
13:45
Speaker 2: college because we took an ad break, and we're going
13:47
Speaker 2: to dislodge her. She's a junior. It's nineteen fifty nine.
13:52
Speaker 2: She meets a guy named John Bloom. She was twenty
13:56
Speaker 2: one at the time. He would have been twenty seven. Yeah,
14:00
Speaker 2: he was already like well out of school, established himself
14:02
Speaker 2: as a lawyer, and he said, hey, tootz, how about
14:06
Speaker 2: we get married. And she liked that idea, so they
14:10
Speaker 2: got engaged and they got married that year. Sadly, very
14:14
Speaker 2: very sadly. I'm sure this hit her quite hard. Her
14:16
Speaker 2: father wasn't there to walk her down the aisle because
14:18
Speaker 2: like a month before the wedding he died from a
14:21
Speaker 2: heart attack. He wasn't early forties, but he was early
14:25
Speaker 2: mid fifties, which is still very very young.
14:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean to see your fear realize like that,
14:31
Speaker 1: like the one thing that she was worried about, specifically
14:33
Speaker 1: the heart attack too, must have been devastating. So she
14:38
Speaker 1: gets married. In nineteen sixty one, she grad graduated from
14:42
Speaker 1: NYU with a degree in early childhood education, and the
14:46
Speaker 1: plan was to sort of you know, you know, you
14:48
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier she didn't want to be a writer necessarily,
14:51
Speaker 1: and you know, one of the big reasons, because it
14:53
Speaker 1: is in the nineteen forties and early nineteen fifties when
14:56
Speaker 1: she was a kid, that just wasn't an avenue that
14:59
Speaker 1: was as open to young women. It's a big reason
15:02
Speaker 1: that se Hinton kept the initials se Hinton when she
15:06
Speaker 1: wrote The Outsiders and all those books.
15:08
Speaker 2: You know, I didn't know se Hinton was a woman.
15:12
Speaker 1: Are you serious?
15:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's serious.
15:14
Speaker 1: Yeah. I thought c Hinton was a teenage girl when
15:17
Speaker 1: she wrote The Outsiders.
15:19
Speaker 2: I had no idea. Wow, yeah, yeah, I thought that
15:23
Speaker 2: was Steve and Edie Hinton.
15:26
Speaker 1: That's why she did it. I mean it worked. I
15:28
Speaker 1: guess she's like, I got to be able to fool
15:29
Speaker 1: Josh Clark.
15:30
Speaker 2: No, but I mean like, I had no idea. This
15:33
Speaker 2: is literally the first time I'm hearing that. It's not
15:35
Speaker 2: even like, oh that vaguely rings a bell. I have
15:38
Speaker 2: never heard that in my entire life.
15:40
Speaker 1: Well, there you have it. She was a teenage girl
15:42
Speaker 1: in high school when she wrote The Outsiders.
15:43
Speaker 2: That's really cool.
15:44
Speaker 1: But again, that's why she kept the name se Hinton
15:47
Speaker 1: because just publishing wasn't so open to young women writing books.
15:50
Speaker 1: So that's why Judy Bloom didn't. And when she was
15:54
Speaker 1: graduating college, she was just sort of on that track.
15:57
Speaker 1: She was like, I'm going to get my degree, I'm
15:58
Speaker 1: going to get married, which I already did before I graduated.
16:01
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have kids and be a homemaker, and within
16:05
Speaker 1: a couple of years of graduating, she had a daughter
16:07
Speaker 1: named Randy Lee and then a son named Lawrence Andrew
16:10
Speaker 1: and was you know, very happily it seems, back in
16:12
Speaker 1: the New Jersey suburbs. Yep, while her husband was attorneying.
16:17
Speaker 2: Yes, so I had said though that she was. She
16:22
Speaker 2: started writing because she was like, I need to do
16:24
Speaker 2: something else besides just like raise kids and sit at
16:27
Speaker 2: home and dust. That just was not enough to fulfill
16:31
Speaker 2: her as a person. So once both of her kids
16:34
Speaker 2: were in preschool, she was like, I'll write some books
16:38
Speaker 2: for my kids, or at least my kids friends if
16:40
Speaker 2: the kids don't like it, she started creating picture books.
16:44
Speaker 2: Essentially the first one she came up was, or at
16:47
Speaker 2: least the first one. Her first published book was a
16:50
Speaker 2: children's picture book called The One in the Middle is
16:52
Speaker 2: the Green Kangaroo, which is a great, great children's book name.
16:58
Speaker 2: But that didn't come like easy. That wasn't like a
17:01
Speaker 2: you know, first try. And she she got her big break.
17:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's I think she went a couple
17:08
Speaker 1: of years, like two two and a half years, getting
17:10
Speaker 1: you know, rejection letter after rejection letter. I think they
17:14
Speaker 1: dug who helped us with this one.
17:16
Speaker 2: Julia.
17:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, Julia found that she was getting like six no
17:20
Speaker 1: letters per week before she became like an overnight success.
17:24
Speaker 1: You know, that's how the media like tends to view
17:26
Speaker 1: those things. But it seems like the big turning point
17:30
Speaker 1: was when she took a continuing ed class at NYU
17:34
Speaker 1: in the late sixties, like a writing class for like
17:37
Speaker 1: tween writing and teen writing. And she told NPR a
17:41
Speaker 1: few years ago that it was like such a monumental
17:44
Speaker 1: thing for her to like to know that she was
17:47
Speaker 1: going to leave every Monday, leave her family, go to
17:50
Speaker 1: the bus to New York City, and like her husband
17:53
Speaker 1: was going to feed the kids, and she wasn't going
17:55
Speaker 1: to be home until later that night. And just knowing
17:57
Speaker 1: she had that creative outlet really freed her up men,
18:00
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, and led to that children's book, and
18:03
Speaker 1: then eventually led to the publishing of her first novel,
18:07
Speaker 1: Iggy's House.
18:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a children's book, I guess maybe young
18:12
Speaker 2: adult book about It's from the viewpoint of a little
18:17
Speaker 2: white girl named Winnie who lives in a neighborhood where
18:20
Speaker 2: her best friend has just moved and a black family
18:23
Speaker 2: moves into the neighborhood, and it's all about the racial
18:26
Speaker 2: tensions that developed White Flight. But it's rather than Judy
18:32
Speaker 2: Bloom trying to make it from the viewpoint of the
18:36
Speaker 2: little girl from the black family that just moved in.
18:39
Speaker 2: I think she very wisely did it from the viewpoint
18:42
Speaker 2: of this, you know, little white girl who's looking at
18:45
Speaker 2: it from the outside and was kind of innocently trying
18:49
Speaker 2: to figure out what the problem was, what was going on.
18:52
Speaker 2: And this is nineteen seventy when it was published, and
18:55
Speaker 2: this is not the kind of book that children were
19:00
Speaker 2: finding in the library at the time by any means.
19:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. So that's her first one published in
19:06
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy, as far as the novel goes, and then
19:09
Speaker 1: right out of the gate, her follow up book, again
19:12
Speaker 1: also in nineteen seventy, was are you there, God, It's
19:15
Speaker 1: me and Margaret Wow. So, I mean, can you just
19:18
Speaker 1: imagine starting your career out with a stone cold classic
19:21
Speaker 1: like that. It was eventually made into a movie that
19:25
Speaker 1: was actually pretty good. I know, she Yeah, it wasn't bad.
19:29
Speaker 1: You know, it's hard when you have such a beloved
19:31
Speaker 1: book from your childhood, and I think that's why she
19:34
Speaker 1: waited so long. You know, overtures for years and years
19:38
Speaker 1: and years to like decades to try and get it
19:40
Speaker 1: made into a film, and she always said no. And
19:42
Speaker 1: I think she finally found you know, that it was
19:44
Speaker 1: time and it turned out pretty good. I'm waiting, you know,
19:46
Speaker 1: Ruby saw it, and I'm waiting for her to want
19:48
Speaker 1: to read these books. Yeah, we got them all, like,
19:50
Speaker 1: you know, ready at the gate, waiting for it.
19:53
Speaker 2: I in the bookshelf.
19:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, they're ready.
19:57
Speaker 2: I didn't see it. I saw. I had a seven
19:59
Speaker 2: point three on IMDb, which is definitely respectable, in ninety
20:02
Speaker 2: nine percent on Rotten Tomatoes. So you're not the only
20:05
Speaker 2: one who thought it was pretty good. So this book
20:09
Speaker 2: that comes out, let's talk about Are you there, God,
20:11
Speaker 2: it's me Margaret for a second. Okay. The reason we
20:15
Speaker 2: referred to Judy Bloom as the Trailblazer is because she
20:17
Speaker 2: was she was one of the first people writing this
20:21
Speaker 2: kind of book for this age group as the hitting her.
20:27
Speaker 2: Her book, The Outsiders takes place among high schoolers, same
20:32
Speaker 2: with like The Chocolate War by Yeah Yeah, Robert love Them, Yeah,
20:40
Speaker 2: Robert Ludlan's Chocolate War. And then also there's another one
20:45
Speaker 2: called The cat ate My Gym Suit by Paula Danzinger.
20:48
Speaker 2: That was fairly all of them had to do with
20:51
Speaker 2: ninth graders or up right. Yeah, she's writing about like
20:55
Speaker 2: eleven year olds. It's going through the beginnings of what
20:59
Speaker 2: high school are now dealing with, right, And the only
21:02
Speaker 2: person who beat her was as he hitting. From what
21:05
Speaker 2: I could tell, I think The Outsiders came out in
21:06
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty seven. Are you the Gut? Are you there? Gut?
21:09
Speaker 2: It's me Margaret came out in nineteen seventy, and again
21:12
Speaker 2: it was just totally different from other books for kids
21:15
Speaker 2: at the time.
21:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, you know, in kids books are still
21:19
Speaker 1: like this in a lot of ways, although there's a
21:20
Speaker 1: lot more variety now, thankfully, But back then it was
21:24
Speaker 1: kind of like, you present a big problem, maybe there's
21:27
Speaker 1: a moral issue or something, and there's some big grand
21:29
Speaker 1: solution that teaches a big grand lesson. And she was like,
21:35
Speaker 1: you know what, it's not that easy and it's not
21:37
Speaker 1: that clean to grow up and black and white, So like,
21:42
Speaker 1: I'm going to write books about how messy it is
21:45
Speaker 1: and how maybe it's just a struggle sometimes, and you know,
21:48
Speaker 1: there's just a lot of realism in her books of
21:51
Speaker 1: like what it was really like to be an adolescent.
21:54
Speaker 1: And you know, critics liked them right away, the buying
22:00
Speaker 1: public love them. I think it was an are you there? God?
22:04
Speaker 1: Was a New York Times bestseller in a New York
22:06
Speaker 1: Times Book Review Outstanding Book of nineteen seventy and just
22:10
Speaker 1: kind of launched her right out of the gate, you know,
22:12
Speaker 1: for sure?
22:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, I saw. It also really took off when it
22:17
Speaker 2: came out in a trade paperback version in nineteen seventy
22:19
Speaker 2: two at a price that, like younger kids, her audience
22:23
Speaker 2: could afford. Oh yeah, they didn't have to ask their
22:25
Speaker 2: parents to buy it for them anymore. Right, So, one
22:30
Speaker 2: of the things that Judy Bloom is credited with is
22:35
Speaker 2: essentially approaching adolescents, approaching well, not just menstruation, chuk but monarchy.
22:41
Speaker 2: Remember that. Yeah, monarchy used to be like a guest character,
22:45
Speaker 2: a recurring guest character on early stuff you should know,
22:48
Speaker 2: weirdly enough.
22:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just a good trivia word.
22:52
Speaker 2: For sure. But she approached it as like it's a
22:55
Speaker 2: good thing. This is exciting, Like her characters are like,
22:58
Speaker 2: hurry up, I want to hurry up. And one passage
23:01
Speaker 2: that's very, very famous is when Margaret and her friends,
23:07
Speaker 2: who all collectively make up the Preteen Sensations. It's their
23:11
Speaker 2: little secret club where they get together and talk about
23:13
Speaker 2: this stuff. One of them has the idea they want
23:15
Speaker 2: to basically grow breasts, I guess is the best way
23:19
Speaker 2: to put it. And so one of them suggests they
23:22
Speaker 2: like move their elbows like back and forth alongside of
23:26
Speaker 2: their like they're basically pumping. And while you do that,
23:30
Speaker 2: you have to say, I must, I must, I must
23:33
Speaker 2: increase my bust.
23:34
Speaker 1: Classic.
23:35
Speaker 2: I didn't know that came from that. I always associate
23:37
Speaker 2: that with the Lords of Acid. Remember that song.
23:40
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I had.
23:41
Speaker 2: No idea that Jade for You from Lords of Acid
23:46
Speaker 2: was a Judy Bloom fan and was sighting are you there?
23:49
Speaker 2: Got It's me?
23:50
Speaker 1: Margaret pretty cool and s he Hinton was a teenage
23:53
Speaker 1: girl when she wrote The Outsider.
23:54
Speaker 2: I'm just finding out all sorts of big stuff.
23:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's pretty cool. I mean, monumental book right out
23:59
Speaker 1: of the gate. She is. At the same time this
24:02
Speaker 1: is going on, you know, a kind of playing this
24:06
Speaker 1: housewife role, but again realizing, like you know, I don't
24:11
Speaker 1: know if that was the life for me. I got
24:13
Speaker 1: married when I was young. I never had sort of
24:15
Speaker 1: the freedom and adventure that I longed for in her life.
24:19
Speaker 1: And she said, you know, there was a quote where
24:22
Speaker 1: she said, for sixteen years writing save me and my marriage,
24:25
Speaker 1: but by the mid seventies the rules it changed. So
24:28
Speaker 1: by nineteen seventy five she's like, you know, I think
24:32
Speaker 1: I want a divorce, and she did that. She divorced
24:34
Speaker 1: her first husband, moved to New York, and then a
24:37
Speaker 1: year later married a physicist named Thomas Kitchens. They were
24:41
Speaker 1: only married for about four years, but they had a
24:43
Speaker 1: pretty adventurous life. They lived in London and in New Mexico.
24:47
Speaker 2: Right, I think at Los Alamosh Okay. So also by
24:54
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy five, when she decided to get divorced from
24:57
Speaker 2: her first husband, the lawyer, she had put out ten
25:01
Speaker 2: books between nineteen seventy and nineteen seventy five.
25:05
Speaker 1: Pretty amazing.
25:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, basically almost all the ones that you and I
25:09
Speaker 2: read came out in that first like ten year spurt.
25:12
Speaker 2: Like she just wrote classic best selling kids books just
25:17
Speaker 2: right out of the gate. It's just really cool how
25:20
Speaker 2: much she was able to do, how much she was
25:22
Speaker 2: able to just connect with little kids. I still don't
25:25
Speaker 2: get it, like I do not understand how an adult
25:27
Speaker 2: can do that. I'm just in awe of it.
25:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. I know her nineteen seventy five book
25:33
Speaker 1: Forever is not one that I read. But that's a
25:37
Speaker 1: very big book for Emily, and I know, a very
25:40
Speaker 1: big book for a lot of like probably girls of
25:43
Speaker 1: all generations, but gen X's Girls in particular, because that
25:46
Speaker 1: was the one where she had kind of been building
25:48
Speaker 1: up to, you know, you know, talking about prepubescent stuff
25:53
Speaker 1: and adolescents and puberty and then finally and Forever, it's
25:56
Speaker 1: like finally a character that wants to try and have
25:59
Speaker 1: sex for the first time, and Emily is just like, oh, man,
26:02
Speaker 1: like to read that book as a kid, it was
26:03
Speaker 1: like a really big deal.
26:05
Speaker 2: Yes, And the book itself, I've seen it described as
26:09
Speaker 2: essentially a self help manual for having safe sex because
26:13
Speaker 2: she follows the main character Catherine throughout like this process
26:17
Speaker 2: where she meets the dude, she falls in love, she
26:20
Speaker 2: decides to have sex, and then before she has sex,
26:22
Speaker 2: she goes to like planned parenthood to get condoms. Yeah,
26:27
Speaker 2: Like she basically learns anatomy and reproductive stuff, like all
26:33
Speaker 2: sorts of different things that are laid out like this
26:37
Speaker 2: is what's happening to Catherine. But reader, I'm really talking
26:40
Speaker 2: to you, and I'm making it as plain as possible.
26:42
Speaker 2: If you're gonna have sex, do this stuff, because this
26:45
Speaker 2: is how you have safe sex. And of course, as
26:48
Speaker 2: we'll see, like that just made it an absolute target
26:51
Speaker 2: for book challenges, where you formally request a book be
26:56
Speaker 2: being under removed from a library.
26:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, we can go into talk about that
27:00
Speaker 1: if you want. I mean, as much as people love
27:03
Speaker 1: Judy Bloom, there was another set of people that hated
27:08
Speaker 1: an author, a grown woman writing about the realistic challenges
27:11
Speaker 1: of like being a kid and being a tween or
27:14
Speaker 1: a teen and going through puberty and all that stuff.
27:17
Speaker 1: So she was a target right out of the gate
27:20
Speaker 1: for book banning, like you said, and is on a
27:23
Speaker 1: lot of lists. As you know, some of the most
27:26
Speaker 1: banned books of all time have been Judy Bloom books,
27:28
Speaker 1: which is like a to me, a feather in your
27:31
Speaker 1: cap as an author, because that means you're probably telling
27:33
Speaker 1: the truth about something.
27:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, but as we'll see, that drove her crazy, like
27:36
Speaker 2: she is not one for censorship, you know.
27:40
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, for sure.
27:41
Speaker 2: So the key I saw to understanding why everybody wants
27:46
Speaker 2: to ban Judy Bloom books. Is that Judy Bloom was
27:49
Speaker 2: the epitome of second wave feminism. Like all the stuff
27:53
Speaker 2: that Betty Fridhan talked about, the feminine mystique is embodied
27:57
Speaker 2: in the writing of Judy Bloom, and Judy Bloom is
28:00
Speaker 2: talking directly to the next generation of kids, essentially saying
28:03
Speaker 2: this is the way to be, this is a good
28:05
Speaker 2: this is a good way to become a good person
28:08
Speaker 2: and love yourself and treat other people kindly. And the
28:13
Speaker 2: arch rival to second wave feminism in the seventies and eighties,
28:17
Speaker 2: and I just think still today is conservativism. They don't
28:22
Speaker 2: want kids shaped like that. So when they see people,
28:27
Speaker 2: when they see books like that should He Bloom books
28:29
Speaker 2: in their library, they don't want their kids anywhere near it,
28:32
Speaker 2: so they request the book be removed. That's why those
28:36
Speaker 2: those books get challenged all the time, is because they're
28:38
Speaker 2: a challenge themselves to conservative ideology, which largely revolves around
28:44
Speaker 2: the idea that if you don't teach kids stuff, they're
28:48
Speaker 2: not going to do it. They're not going to think
28:50
Speaker 2: of it themselves, and they're not going to do it.
28:52
Speaker 2: And yeah, it seems preposterous to me too, and it
28:54
Speaker 2: gets proven wrong time and time and time again. But
28:58
Speaker 2: that's just how that's just the conservative outlook. That's just
29:01
Speaker 2: they don't feel comfortable trying a different way in that respect.
29:05
Speaker 2: And you know, I mean that's a lot of people's viewpoint,
29:09
Speaker 2: it's not necessarily mine. But I think, you know, it
29:12
Speaker 2: doesn't mean that's inherently wrong. I just I just don't
29:15
Speaker 2: like the idea of banning books, even though I get
29:18
Speaker 2: to an extent where they're coming from. They're trying to
29:20
Speaker 2: protect their children, not take off Judy Bloom or the liberals.
29:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think a lot of what that frame
29:26
Speaker 1: of mind comes from is I want to be the
29:30
Speaker 1: decider of my kid learning what they learn when they
29:33
Speaker 1: learn it. As far as sexuality goes, right, I want
29:36
Speaker 1: to be in charge of that. I don't want it
29:37
Speaker 1: to come from some book from some lady that they
29:39
Speaker 1: happen to check out at the library.
29:41
Speaker 2: Because they had a good like cover illustration.
29:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, I get that to a certain degree.
29:46
Speaker 1: But like ts, you know, for Judy, as far as
29:51
Speaker 1: she goes, she didn't think she was being very controversial.
29:53
Speaker 1: She thought I'm just writing in a very frank way
29:56
Speaker 1: about how kids really are, Like I was writing the truth, right, Chuck,
30:00
Speaker 1: All right, Well, one day, say she didn't like the
30:03
Speaker 1: sterilized adolescents that she saw portrayed in like other kids
30:07
Speaker 1: books and you know, books that ignored the angst of
30:10
Speaker 1: what was going on in kids' lives. So she thought,
30:13
Speaker 1: and I think she was very much correct in my opinion,
30:15
Speaker 1: and I'm sure yours that she was doing a service
30:18
Speaker 1: by like kind of portraying the realism of childhood and teendom. Yeah.
30:23
Speaker 2: Better to learn this stuff from an adult who knows
30:26
Speaker 2: what they're talking about, who's been through this and knows
30:28
Speaker 2: how to describe the process of having safe sex than
30:32
Speaker 2: from Tina who has an older brother that mentioned to
30:35
Speaker 2: her like, you know one time.
30:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
30:39
Speaker 2: So, yes, she has been I think she's not just
30:43
Speaker 2: been one of the most banned authors of the eighties
30:46
Speaker 2: and the nineties, but also the twenty first century. I
30:50
Speaker 2: think even in twenty twenty five, twenty twenty four to
30:53
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five school year, she was her novel Forever
30:58
Speaker 2: was on the list of most banned books. The one
31:02
Speaker 2: that had it was basically a safe sex self help Yeah,
31:07
Speaker 2: so yeah, you can kind of understand that. But it's
31:09
Speaker 2: not just that. There's been other ones too, Like Tiger
31:12
Speaker 2: Eyes is about a girl whose father is killed during
31:19
Speaker 2: a robbery of the seven to eleven that he works at,
31:22
Speaker 2: and her coming to terms with that and suffering from
31:24
Speaker 2: grief and depression, and one of her friends is an
31:27
Speaker 2: underage binge drinker. I mean, that book gets banned a
31:31
Speaker 2: lot too.
31:33
Speaker 1: Yeah. Man, I just think it's so cool that she
31:35
Speaker 1: was brave enough to like write these stories, you know.
31:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. I mean like she was very brave,
31:41
Speaker 2: especially after it became clear and I think it did
31:43
Speaker 2: fairly early on that there was a large segment of
31:47
Speaker 2: America that viewed her books as controversial, And so yeah,
31:52
Speaker 2: every time she sat down and wrote one of these,
31:54
Speaker 2: it was a greater and greater act of bravery.
31:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, and a bigger and bigger middle finger. Should we
32:02
Speaker 1: take our second break?
32:03
Speaker 2: Yeah?
32:04
Speaker 1: All right, we'll be right back, everybody with more on
32:06
Speaker 1: Judy Bloom. All right. So I did mention, and you know,
32:27
Speaker 1: this isn't the most revealing thing in the world. A
32:29
Speaker 1: lot of authors write about what they know, but Judy
32:31
Speaker 1: Bloom definitely did that. When she was living in Maine,
32:35
Speaker 1: she wrote a story said in Maine. When she lived
32:37
Speaker 1: in New Mexico, she wrote, I think I said movie.
32:40
Speaker 1: She wrote a book. You know, I'm talking about books here.
32:43
Speaker 1: She wrote a book. Did I say movie?
32:45
Speaker 2: I don't think so.
32:46
Speaker 1: Okay, I thought it said movie.
32:48
Speaker 2: If you did, I'm sorry I missed Anyway.
32:50
Speaker 1: A lot of times she wrote books like set where
32:52
Speaker 1: she was living, or about sort of veiled, thinly veiled
32:55
Speaker 1: sort of things that happened in her own childhood. Super unusual.
33:01
Speaker 1: But she also did the same thing. You know, she
33:02
Speaker 1: wrote adult books too. We're talking about her kid's books.
33:04
Speaker 1: She wrote four novels for adults. They were all bestsellers
33:07
Speaker 1: as well, and they were all sort of about her
33:11
Speaker 1: life experiences, starting with Wifey in nineteen seventy eight, about
33:15
Speaker 1: a woman who was in a sort of traditional marriage
33:18
Speaker 1: he wanted to break out of that.
33:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, pretty autobiographical. There's also Smart Women, which was about
33:25
Speaker 2: women navigating dating and relationships after like post divorce.
33:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, there you go.
33:31
Speaker 2: That was eighty three. There's also one that came out
33:34
Speaker 2: in ninety eight called Summer Sisters. It's about a female friendship.
33:37
Speaker 2: That sounds pretty sweet.
33:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, Summer's in the season.
33:40
Speaker 2: And then in the Unlikely Event from twenty fifteen. That
33:44
Speaker 2: was the one you mentioned that she wrote about a
33:46
Speaker 2: family going through those actual plane crashes that she went through.
33:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. And you know I said that critics,
33:53
Speaker 1: they certainly didn't love everything. I know, are you there,
33:55
Speaker 1: Goud It's me Margaret. And a lot of her best
33:57
Speaker 1: sellers got some good marks with critics, but a lot
33:59
Speaker 1: of critics kind of dunked on her for being a
34:04
Speaker 1: simplistic writer. And there was one critic who compared her
34:07
Speaker 1: writing to a shopping list. And I always just thought
34:10
Speaker 1: her work was just very readable for her audience. If
34:15
Speaker 1: that's simplistic, then I guess it works in my opinion,
34:18
Speaker 1: you know, yeah.
34:20
Speaker 2: I mean we're talking about eleven year old readers who
34:23
Speaker 2: may have only been reading for the last handful of years, you.
34:26
Speaker 1: Know, yeah, totally.
34:27
Speaker 2: Yeah. But the difference is she didn't write down to them, right,
34:32
Speaker 2: So yeah, I think I think there were just people
34:35
Speaker 2: who didn't like what she was writing, and we're taking
34:38
Speaker 2: potshots wherever they felt they could get.
34:41
Speaker 1: This made me kind of want to reread one of
34:43
Speaker 1: her books and just see how it grabbed me as
34:45
Speaker 1: an adult.
34:46
Speaker 2: You know, Yeah, I ran across a couple of people
34:48
Speaker 2: who were talking about some of these books and they're like, yeah,
34:51
Speaker 2: I spent three hours reading this and it was.
34:52
Speaker 1: Well worth right, and it just plays through it.
34:55
Speaker 2: Yeah. I feel the same way that I'd like to
34:58
Speaker 2: read some more, just at least one or two and
35:02
Speaker 2: then the entire catalog of Sweet Valley High.
35:06
Speaker 1: Emily read those two man, she reads a lot and
35:09
Speaker 1: read a lot as a kid.
35:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, well they were huge when we were younger.
35:13
Speaker 1: Yeah. And the other one for Emily was the Nancy
35:16
Speaker 1: Drew books. She still has her collection from like her mom,
35:19
Speaker 1: from when she was a kid, and she read all
35:20
Speaker 1: of those.
35:20
Speaker 2: That's really cool.
35:22
Speaker 1: Yeah.
35:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, my sisters read those. And The Hardy Boys a
35:25
Speaker 2: little bit.
35:26
Speaker 1: Yeah.
35:26
Speaker 2: I was a fan of Alfred Hitchcock's Three Investigators.
35:32
Speaker 1: Two. Why does it sound so familiar?
35:35
Speaker 2: It was like Alfred Hitchcock's nephew and every once in
35:38
Speaker 2: a while they could call on Alfred Hitchcock.
35:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, but they read some of.
35:42
Speaker 2: Them, investigate some It was very Hardy Boys esque.
35:45
Speaker 1: Yeah.
35:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, I like them for some reason.
35:48
Speaker 1: What a time, What.
35:49
Speaker 2: A time to be alive.
35:52
Speaker 1: So because of all of the book banning and stuff
35:55
Speaker 1: that went on, it's probably no surprise that she became
35:59
Speaker 1: very much a a kind of central person in the
36:03
Speaker 1: anti book banning movement. Yeah, she has worked a lot
36:08
Speaker 1: over the years with the National Coalition Against Censorship. She
36:11
Speaker 1: had a couple of projects in the eighties trying to
36:15
Speaker 1: get like parents and kids talking more, and one was
36:17
Speaker 1: called the Kids Fun Capitol Kids in nineteen eighty one. Yeah,
36:20
Speaker 1: very cool, And that's to develop programs that encourage communication
36:23
Speaker 1: between parents and teens, the foster parent child discussions through books.
36:28
Speaker 1: And then she had a book she I don't think
36:31
Speaker 1: we mentioned. One of the things that she got a
36:33
Speaker 1: lot through her career was letters from kids who often
36:37
Speaker 1: told her things that like they would never tell their
36:39
Speaker 1: parents and were just very open and expressive. So she
36:44
Speaker 1: hopefully had permission, but she eventually put those out in
36:46
Speaker 1: a book called Letters to Judy Colon What your kids
36:50
Speaker 1: wish they could tell you, And this was in nineteen
36:52
Speaker 1: eighty six.
36:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, I thought that was a pretty cool thing to do.
36:55
Speaker 1: Yeah.
36:56
Speaker 2: Same, So yeah, I'd like she's the real deal. She's
37:01
Speaker 2: not just in it for the dough, although I'm quite
37:04
Speaker 2: sure she's made quite a bit of dough, because I
37:07
Speaker 2: think she's sold like ninety million copies of her books
37:10
Speaker 2: over the years. Ooh, man, forty different languages.
37:14
Speaker 1: That's amazing.
37:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, so she has made quite a bit of money,
37:19
Speaker 2: but she's also legit in the fact that she's she
37:23
Speaker 2: really genuinely wants to figure out how to bridge the
37:26
Speaker 2: gap between parents and their kids to help both groups.
37:32
Speaker 2: She also you said that she was like really against censorship.
37:37
Speaker 2: One of the things that she took a stand against
37:39
Speaker 2: was back in twenty twenty three was a cancel culture.
37:44
Speaker 2: Basically any kind of intellectual censorship or anything that was
37:49
Speaker 2: against any intellectual freedom. She was against. And she was
37:54
Speaker 2: talking about this in an interview with The Times of
37:56
Speaker 2: London in April of that year. Apparently they asked her
38:01
Speaker 2: about JK Rowling, who, at the time and I think
38:03
Speaker 2: still basically every day was controversial because she made some
38:08
Speaker 2: like repeated double down comments about that we're just transphobic essentially. Yeah,
38:18
Speaker 2: and out of that context, in a different context, they
38:21
Speaker 2: I asked Judy Bloom about that about JK Rowling, and
38:25
Speaker 2: she said that I love her. I am behind her
38:28
Speaker 2: one hundred percent. As I watched from afar and the
38:32
Speaker 2: way that it was printed in the Times of London article,
38:35
Speaker 2: it made it sound like she was like, yeah, I'm
38:38
Speaker 2: backing up this person's transphobic comments. I'm behind her one
38:42
Speaker 2: hundred percent. So she had to take the social media
38:45
Speaker 2: to be like that was out of context.
38:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, in fact, I think we should read her quote
38:50
Speaker 1: even she said I wholly support the trans community. My point,
38:54
Speaker 1: which was taken out of context, is that I can
38:56
Speaker 1: empathize with the writer or any person who has been
38:59
Speaker 1: harassed online, stand with the trans community, and vehemently disagree
39:03
Speaker 1: with anyone who does not fully support equality and acceptance
39:06
Speaker 1: of LGTBQ plus people. Anything to the contrary is total
39:11
Speaker 1: b sh And I love that she took such a
39:15
Speaker 1: hard stance of like, hey, hey, hey, don't misunderstand my words,
39:20
Speaker 1: like I'm Judy effing Bloom exactly.
39:23
Speaker 2: That was pretty much what's between the lines there for sure. Yeah,
39:28
Speaker 2: so let's see, you said that she lives in Key West.
39:31
Speaker 2: Now you can go to books and books at the
39:33
Speaker 2: studios of Key West and say hi, maybe buy something,
39:36
Speaker 2: and then she's I mean, she's just basically been really
39:39
Speaker 2: back in the spotlight in the last few years, even
39:41
Speaker 2: though she's from what I understand, still on hiatus since
39:45
Speaker 2: twenty fifteen from writing or at least publishing. But starting
39:50
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty three, there were not just that movie
39:53
Speaker 2: for Are You There Got It to Me? Margaret, which,
39:55
Speaker 2: like you said, people have been waiting decades for. There's
39:58
Speaker 2: a documentary that came out that year, Bloom Forever.
40:01
Speaker 1: It's great and yeah.
40:02
Speaker 2: And then in twenty twenty four there was a biography,
40:05
Speaker 2: The Genius of Judy, by rachelle Bergstein, that was kind
40:10
Speaker 2: of like a scholarly exploration of how Bloom's work impacted kids.
40:17
Speaker 2: And then there was another one. It was a authorized
40:20
Speaker 2: and then unauthorized autobiography called Judy Bloom Colon a Life
40:25
Speaker 2: that her friend Mark Oppenheimer published in March twenty twenty six,
40:30
Speaker 2: and that she publicly removed her support from cut off
40:33
Speaker 2: contact with Oppenheimer. Yea, and then didn't explain to the
40:37
Speaker 2: public or Oppenheimer why.
40:39
Speaker 1: Yeah. I don't know why.
40:41
Speaker 2: No, no one knows why she didn't tell me. Poured
40:43
Speaker 2: over those books and have been like or that book
40:47
Speaker 2: and have been like, maybe this is it? Is this it?
40:49
Speaker 2: I don't know. Mark Oppenheimer's like, I have no idea.
40:52
Speaker 2: She didn't explain it to me. There wasn't anything controversial
40:55
Speaker 2: she like, but she read the first draft and that
40:58
Speaker 2: was it.
40:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, who knows, you know, I know what you mentioned.
41:01
Speaker 1: She had those two divorces, but you'll be glad to
41:04
Speaker 1: know that she found long lasting true love. Sometimes it
41:08
Speaker 1: takes a couple of times to get it right. But
41:10
Speaker 1: she met a guy named George Cooper in nineteen seventy
41:13
Speaker 1: nine and they moved in together after their very first
41:16
Speaker 1: date and got married eight years later in nineteen eighty seven.
41:20
Speaker 1: And that is who helps her run that bookstore down
41:23
Speaker 1: in Key Wes. So they're still together after all these years.
41:25
Speaker 2: That is super cute. Yeah, he's like a civil rights
41:29
Speaker 2: law professor.
41:30
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, that sounds about right.
41:34
Speaker 2: What else you got?
41:36
Speaker 1: I got nothing else I don't either.
41:38
Speaker 2: Hats off to Judy Bloom. Even if you don't agree
41:41
Speaker 2: with her writing and what she writes about to kids,
41:44
Speaker 2: you still got to admire bravery, courage.
41:47
Speaker 1: Agreed.
41:49
Speaker 2: And if you want to know more about Judy Bloom,
41:51
Speaker 2: doesn't really matter what aide you are, go read some
41:53
Speaker 2: of her books. While you're doing that, And you know what,
41:56
Speaker 2: you could do a lot worse than checking it out
41:58
Speaker 2: at your local library to support its existence there true
42:02
Speaker 2: and or could do both. Buy one from your local
42:06
Speaker 2: independent bookseller.
42:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe from Judy Bloom herself, sure you're in Key West.
42:13
Speaker 2: Or if you find a dude selling books out of
42:16
Speaker 2: the trunk of his car that is as independent a
42:18
Speaker 2: bookseller as you can find.
42:20
Speaker 1: I wonder if you bought one from Judy Bloom herself
42:23
Speaker 1: in her own bookstore and you're like, oh my god,
42:25
Speaker 1: will you please sign this, She's like, I don't sign
42:27
Speaker 1: books on Judy writing Bloom.
42:29
Speaker 2: Please leave.
42:29
Speaker 1: Here's your receipt middle finger.
42:32
Speaker 2: Let's see. Chuck just made himself laugh, which is wonderful.
42:35
Speaker 2: That means it's time for listener mail.
42:39
Speaker 1: That means he's awake. Bonjour, Josh and Chuck. My husband
42:43
Speaker 1: and I finally had a chance to see you live
42:44
Speaker 1: for the first time at Massey Hall in Toronto this June,
42:48
Speaker 1: which in real time was just a couple of nights
42:49
Speaker 1: ago for us, and it was the greatest show on Earth.
42:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, we got a standing ovation.
42:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was really something. We are from a small
42:59
Speaker 1: community about two hours and a half north of Toronto,
43:02
Speaker 1: and we're definitely not city people, but we figured it's
43:05
Speaker 1: worth it for Josh and Chuck. My husband's been a
43:07
Speaker 1: huge fan and loyal listener for many years. I'll admit
43:09
Speaker 1: that I had personally listen because it gave me something
43:11
Speaker 1: to talk about with a guy who had eventually become
43:13
Speaker 1: my husband. But it didn't take long before I genuinely
43:16
Speaker 1: fell in love with the show myself, and because of that,
43:18
Speaker 1: I've always associated both of you with the very beginning
43:21
Speaker 1: of our relationship. Nice your show at Massey Hall far
43:24
Speaker 1: exceeded our expectations. I just wanted to thank you for
43:27
Speaker 1: giving us such a wonderful evening. Atmosphere was warm, relaxed,
43:30
Speaker 1: genuinely fun. My husband was smiling from ear to ear
43:33
Speaker 1: the entire time, and despite the anxiety that events like
43:36
Speaker 1: this can sometimes bring, he was comfortable and able to
43:39
Speaker 1: simply enjoy himself, and that alone meant more to me
43:42
Speaker 1: than I can express. So thank you both for doing
43:44
Speaker 1: what you do despite all the craziness in the world
43:47
Speaker 1: right now. It brought me so much joy to see
43:48
Speaker 1: a room full of people come together simply to laugh
43:51
Speaker 1: and learn and enjoy a couple of hours together. I
43:53
Speaker 1: think your Canadian listeners note just how kind and genuine
43:55
Speaker 1: you both are, and we truly appreciate that you made
43:58
Speaker 1: the trip to spend some time with us here in care.
44:00
Speaker 1: We'd be lucky to have you back anytime, because you're
44:03
Speaker 1: always welcome here. Thanks for such a memorable experience, warmly,
44:07
Speaker 1: Kelsey and Andrew. Sweet.
44:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is a world class email.
44:11
Speaker 1: Huh maybe best ever.
44:13
Speaker 2: That's the kind of email that removes borders and just
44:16
Speaker 2: turns us into one great, big North American continent. You know. Agreed, Well,
44:22
Speaker 2: thanks a lot, Kelsey and Andrew. Thanks for coming to
44:24
Speaker 2: see us, and thank you Kelsey for such a great email.
44:26
Speaker 2: And if you want to try to top that, let's
44:28
Speaker 2: see what you got. You can wrap it up, spank
44:31
Speaker 2: it on the bottom, and send it off to stuff
44:33
Speaker 2: podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
44:40
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
44:43
Speaker 1: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
44:47
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.