Kotex became a status symbol among young, middle-class women: Joan Jacobs Brumberg, The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls (New York: Vintage Books, 1997), pp. 44–45.

by approximately 100 million American girls: Sharra Louise Vostral, Under Wraps: A History of Menstrual Hygiene Technology (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2008), p. 121. Accessed on Google Books: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Under_Wraps/PWA0yisYPnEC?hl=en&gbpv=0.

“If the egg is impregnated”: “The Story of Menstruation,” Disney, 1946. Accessed on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vG9o9m0LsbI.

“The narrator of the film pronounced it menstroo-ation”: Judy Blume, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, p. 111.

“It was like one big commercial”: Ibid., p. 112.

“Everyone gets sex ed, all seven billion people”: JZ to RB, May 31, 2022.

The booklet, published in 1970: Box 67 of the Judy Blume Papers at Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Accessed May 11, 2022.

Chapter Five

Bad Kids

“Sometimes I am a mean and rotten person”: Judy Blume, It’s Not the End of the World (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Bradbury Press, 1972). I worked from the 2014 reprint published by Simon & Schuster, p. 46.

“I heard all about you and Moose Freed”: Judy Blume, Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Bradbury Press, 1970), p. 133.

“My brother was so rebellious”: V.C. Chickering, “A Judy Blume Interview from the Bust Archives,” Bust, February 12, 2015, originally published in the 1997 Spring/Summer issue. Accessed online: https://bust.com/tbt-a-very-special-judy-blume-exclusive-from-our-bust-vault/.

“My mother used to say, ‘We never have to punish Judy’ ”: Judy Blume, Letters to Judy, p. 15.

“I wanted to say let me alone”: Judy Blume, Then Again, Maybe I Won’t (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Bradbury Press, 1970). I worked from the 2014 reprint published by Simon & Schuster, p. 113.

“the best looking girl I’ve seen in person anywhere”: Ibid., p. 43.

“When I read Joel’s paperbacks, I can feel myself get hard”: Ibid., p. 52.

prompting some rigorous tête-à-têtes with Jackson: Box 115 of the Judy Blume Papers at Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Accessed April 28, 2022.

“You’ll get a new one… from Rosemont Junior High”: Judy Blume, Then Again, Maybe I Won’t, p. 29.

Kirkus said on October 18, 1971: Kirkus Reviews. Accessed through the New York Public Library.

“There are a number of different factors”: Telephone interview with Suzanne Kahn, October 14, 2022.

she “did considerable reading and six months of crying”: Weidt, Presenting Judy Blume, p. 87.

“I tried to reassure [Randy and Larry] but I really wasn’t sure myself”: Judy Blume, Letters to Judy, p. 90.

“I felt tears come to my eyes”: Judy Blume, It’s Not the End of the World, p. 38.

“I would rather have them fight than be divorced”: Ibid., p. 42.

“Sometimes I feel sorry for my mother and other times I hate her”: Ibid., p. 108.

“I stamped on it with both feet until there was nothing left”: Ibid., p. 170.

Early drafts of It’s Not the End of the World show Blume: Box 110 of the Judy Blume Papers at Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Accessed April 29, 2022.

“I have discovered something important about my mother and father”: Judy Blume, It’s Not the End of the World, p. 180.

And eventually, Jackson suggested that Bill’s second marriage plot: Box 110 of the Judy Blume Papers at Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Accessed April 29, 2022.

“All you care about is yourself!”: Judy Blume, It’s Not the End of the World, p. 115.

Chapter Six

The Fourth Dimension

“In my heart, I was out there marching”: Judy Blume in conversation with Samantha Bee at an event at the 92nd Street Y on June 2, 2015. Accessed on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7svP4zqCc0.

“a theory of patriarchy”: Kate Millett, The Second Sex (New York: Doubleday & Company, 1970), p. 24.

“Women who are employed have two jobs”: Ibid., p. 41.

During the 1960 race between Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy: Weidt, Presenting Judy Blume, p. 119.

“Daddy and I just don’t enjoy being together”: Judy Blume, It’s Not the End of the World (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Bradbury Press, 1972), p. 85.

“I had you when I was just twenty”: Ibid., p. 102.

“The children need you at home, Ellie”: Ibid., p. 112.

“It was like the bacteria, the bad bacteria was coming out”: Judy Blume at the Arlington Public Library event on October 22, 2015. Accessed on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUDBcovfFjM.

“My mother had many, many talents and much to offer”: Lee, Judy Blume’s Story, p. 78.

“the hero, the cowgirl, the detective”: V.C. Chickering, “A Judy Blume Interview from the Bust Archives,” Bust, February 12, 2015, originally published in the 1997 Spring/Summer issue. Accessed online: https://bust.com/tbt-a-very-special-judy-blume-exclusive-from-our-bust-vault/.

“She had a Roadster with a rumble seat”: Ibid.

Judy has said Dr. O was based on her father: Judy Blume in conversation with Samantha Bee at an event at the 92nd Street Y on June 2, 2015. Accessed on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7svP4zqCc0.

“After that, she’d reinvented herself”: Judy Blume, In the Unlikely Event (New York: Vintage Books, 2015), p. 385.

“in the feminine mystique, which defines woman solely”: Betty Freidan, It Changed My Life: Writings on the Women’s Movement (New York: Norton, 1976). I worked from the 1991 reprint from Dell Books, p. 38.

“Women who work because of a commitment [to their vocation]”: Ibid., p. 42.

She endorses “a new kind of city living”: Ibid., p. 53.

“You never grew up! You’re still Ruth’s baby!”: Judy Blume, It’s Not the End of the World, p. 168.

Chapter Seven