The last post on this blog garnered a rather rude complaint. "This is too much to read. I don't have the energy." Well, then you'll probably have a hard time reading an actual book, then, seeing as how a blog post--even a lengthy blog post-- is substantially shorter than the average book.Still, I took the comment seriously and will try to keep things a little shorter for those of you with tiny attention spans and low energy levels.
Everything I Needed to Know About Being a Girl I Learned from Judy Blume, published in 1997 (and soon to be released in paperback), is a compilation of essays edited by Jennifer O'Connell. If you have ever been a young girl, then you know Blume and her masterful way of addressing adolescent angst. You probably also know how to make a mean dog-ear in a paperback.
Titles like Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret and that scandalous Forever made the rounds at my junior high, much like they did at every junior high school in America. Personal copies were secretively passed during science class or by the lockers, like contraband. I imagine they still circulate the hallways. Please tell me they do. I hope they haven't taken a back seat to stupid texting. Kids do still read YA literature, right? Even if it's not assigned reading?
O'Connell does a fair job in gathering quality essays from well-known writers like Meg Cabot (The Princess Diaries) and introduces readers to lesser-knowns (check out Stephanie Lessing at http://www.stephanielessing.com/). I hesitate to offer this caveat, but you seem like nice readers, so here it is: The essays can teeter on tiresome. Unless you are a diehard fan of Deenie and It's Not the End of the World, you may find yourself yawning and saying, "Enough with the scoliosis and divorce already."
Funnier recollections would have come from Margaret and Freckle Juice fans, I would imagine, and if I had edited this book, I would have sought them out. Or written my own. The woe-is-me crap (or, more appropriately, woe-was-me-at-13) is starting to get on my nerves. We have too much of that in the world right now. Be woeful, sure, because that's what pre-teenagerness and teenagerness are all about, but have a sense of humor about you. Some of the essays contained in this book do so--and they do it well. Gloss over those whose writers are seemingly still mired in the yuck of adolescence and holding some mighty big grudges against friends they had to break up with. (All these years, and I never realized other girls found themselves in "friendship breakup." Who knew.)
Still, if you were ever the slightest Judy Blume follower, this is a nice walk down Memory Lane. You'll find yourself recalling book covers and even a few salacious scenes from select titles. You know the ones. :)
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