American novelist, born Judith Sussman, who grew up in New Jersey in the 1940s and 1950s in a progressive Jewish family. She did not consider writing until her late 20s, when she was a frustrated housewife with two small children. Her early imitations of Dr Seuss's rhyming style gave way to a "frank, candid, earthy" voice that brought puberty, self-discovery and masturbation into children's literature.
Books include "Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret", "Deenie", "Blubber" and "Forever…", which described a 17-year-old girl's first sexual experiences. She has sold more than 80m copies—more than Joseph Heller or Douglas Adams. She has been married three times.
Her candour sparked decades of censorship attempts. In 2025 "Forever…" was still one of the most banned books in America's public schools. In the 1980s a school district in Iowa groused that it describes things "God didn't intend to explore outside of marriage"; in the 1990s one in Illinois fretted that it was "basically a sexual how-to-do book for junior-high students".
A biography, "Judy Blume: A Life" by Mark Oppenheimer, was published in 2026. Despite having interviewed Blume at length, Oppenheimer concedes he struggled to get the true measure of her as a person; Blume distanced herself from the project after reviewing a draft.
To generalize is to be an idiot.