Who has created a bigger impact on children’s literature than Judy Blume? She was among the first authors to write teen novels about racism, menstruation, divorce, bullying, masturbation, and teen sex. She’s also written chapter books and novels for adults, selling more than 82 million copies of her books in 32 languages. In the 1980s, Judy found herself in the center of an organized book banning campaign. Ever since, she has worked tirelessly with the National Coalition Against Censorship to protect the freedom to read.

Judy Blume Quotes

• The best books come from someplace inside. You don’t write because you want to, but because you have to.

• I’m really quite bad at coming up with plot ideas. I like to create characters and just see what will happen to them when I let them loose!

• I wrote Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret right out of my own experiences and feelings when I was in sixth grade. Controversy wasn’t on my mind. I wanted only to write what I knew to be true. I wanted to write the best, the most honest books I could, the kinds of books I would have liked to read when I was younger. If someone had told me then I would become one of the most banned writers in America, I’d have laughed.

• I wanted to show sexuality with responsibility. I wanted girls to have a good time. Damn, I was a girl.

• I talk to God as a confidant, the way Margaret does.

• Censorship grows out of fear, and because fear is contagious, some parents are easily swayed. Book banning satisfies their need to feel in control of their children’s lives.

• You cannot say, “I don’t want a book in the library because I don’t want my child to read it” when everybody else’s children have the right to read it.

To learn more about Judy, her books, and her views on censorship, visit her website. To watch video interviews of Judy, go to here.

Simon & Schuster is reissuing Judy’s middle grade novels in April with cover illustrations by Debbie Ridpath Ohi. Click here to read about Debbie’s new covers as well as her exciting news about other Blume classics.