Judy Blume Is 75

Do kids read Judy Blume today? Or is it all vampires and British wizards and whatever? I don’t know, but for most of the people born roughly around the time that I was and for at least few years after she was an indispensable guide to the horror and dread that awaited us once our bodies changed. She was also a lot more than that; I’m not sure there’s been enough acknowledgment of just how funny a writer she is. I would wager that more people in their 30s and 40s today owe at least a part of their sense of humor to Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing and some of her other, more lighthearted works than even they know. And I would just like to note on a personal level that reading Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret instilled in me at a very tender age a lifelong sense of gratitude that I do not have a vagina. Anyway, she turns 75 today, and we wish her many happy returns.