“You’ve become so self-absorbed that you probably never even considered”: Randy Blume, Crazy in the Cockpit (New York: DK Publishing, 1999), pp. 5–6.
“It turned out my mother wouldn’t have noticed if I’d flown an airplane through the living room”: Ibid., p. 19.
“My mother and Norman got up early every morning to bike, snorkel, or sail”: Ibid., p. 24.
“How could she have let me come to this intellectual and cultural wasteland”: Ibid., p. 213.
“She felt a pouring out of motherly love”: Judy Blume, Smart Women, p. 351.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Libraries
“It’s really scary being a librarian right now”: AL to RB, October 12, 2022.
the breadwinner/homemaker model of marriage is still “super baked in”: SK to RB, October 14, 2022.
“Of course, [he] opened it initially to the perfect page”: Skype call with Michael Dishnow, May 2, 2023.
“at one point I made a statement to the effect, I used a curse word”: Ibid., May 2, 2023.
“the realities I knew having been in the Marine Corps overseas”: Ibid., May 2, 2023.
“They fired me… for being insubordinate”: Ibid., May 2, 2023.
“But I wasn’t in it for the money to begin with,” Dishnow said: Ibid., May 2, 2023.
“Guidance counselor Mike Dishnow was fired for writing critically”: Judy Blume, “Places I Never Meant to Be: A Personal View,” American Libraries, June/July 1999, pp. 62–67.
“From my mom’s point of view and the other seventies-era writers, it was such a step backwards”: JF to RB, April 3, 2022.
“so much worse than it was in the ’80s”: Steven McIntosh, “Judy Blume Worried About Intolerance and Book Banning in the US,” BBC.com, April 1, 2023. https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-65142127.
“Critical Race Theory is not taught in K–12 education”: AL to RB, October 12, 2022.
“they looked over a kid’s shoulder and, excuse my language, they saw the word ‘fuck’ ”: Ibid., October 12, 2022.
“I loved that book, the kids loved it”: LH to RB, October 25, 2022.
“Well, it ended up being so controversial and difficult”: Telephone interview with Carol Waxman, October 27, 2022.
“I wholly support the trans community”: Judy Blume (@judyblume) on X (Twitter), April 16, 2023: https://x.com/judyblume/status/1647713323830644736?s=20.
“Augustus Gloop is no longer fat, Mrs. Twit is no longer fearfully ugly”: Anita Singh, “Augustus Gloop Is No Longer Fat as Roald Dahl Goes PC,” The Telegraph, February 17, 2023. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/02/17/roald-dahl-woke-overhaul-offensive-words-removed/.
oft-censored author Salman Rushdie tweeted that Puffin Books: Salmon Rushdie (@salmonrushdie) on X (Twitter), February 18, 2023. https://x.com/SalmanRushdie/status/1627075835525210113?s=20.
“The mother is always home, never works, always wearing a dress”: CW to RB, October 27, 2022.
“Parents don’t want to admit that their children are growing up”: AL to RB, October 12, 2022.
“They said, ‘Well, they couldn’t read or write because maybe many of them’ ”: JL to RB, November 8, 2023.
“I always say, the reason [to have] inclusivity and diversity in our collections”: Ibid., November 9, 2023.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Legacy
“We didn’t have the internet; we didn’t have any places where we could find the answers”: Telephone interview with Shannon Dressler, October 31, 2023.
“in every age… there are books that answer the needs of the moment”: Gay Andrews Dillin, “Judy Blume: Children’s Author in a Grown-Up Controversy,” Christian Science Monitor, December 10, 1981, p. B4.
“The way that sex education is usually done is to put up one picture”: CS to RB, October 26, 2022.
“It’s really helping [students] learn how to have healthy relationships”: SD to RB, October 31, 2023.
“These kids have access to so much”: Ibid., October 31, 2023.
“I get why parents don’t want to talk about where babies come from”: CS to RB, October 26, 2022.
authors gathered at the Atlanta-Fulton central library to read aloud: Cynthia Durcanin, “Atlanta Writers Read from Rushdie amid Moslem Protests,” Atlanta Constitution, February 26, 1989.
the then-forty-nine-year-old Judy was dubbed a Library Lion by the New York Public Library: Patricia Leigh Brown, “A Literate Night of Dining and Lionizing,” New York Times, November 13, 1987, sec. A, p. 22.
On June 6, 1987, just a week after his fiftieth birthday: Box 34 of the Judy Blume Papers at Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Accessed April 28, 2022.
“She always said, ‘I should only live to see this wedding’ ”: Weidt, Presenting Judy Blume, p. 15.
