Author of the week: Judy Blume

last updated 8 January 2015

Judy Blume finally knows what her novel Tiger Eyes was really about, said Melena Ryzik in The New York Times. Her son, Lawrence, might argue that the 1981 work captures his teenage experience. After all, he’s just turned the book into a low-budget film, marking the first big-screen adaptation of any of the many young-adult novels that made Blume a household name. Set in New Mexico, Tiger Eyes tells the story of a teenage girl who, with her mother and brother, has relocated from the East Coast after the sudden death of her father. Blume wrote the book shortly after she moved to New Mexico with Lawrence after a divorce. But it wasn’t the mother she suddenly identified with when she saw the finished movie. It was the protagonist, dealing at a young age with the death of a father. “I thought, How could I not have known this? My God, that’s me.”

Blume just seems to have that touch, said Sara Stewart in the New York Post. Hollywood might forget that Blume has sold 85 million books and is still beloved by the female readers who depended on controversial works like Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret to guide them through the mysteries of growing up. But Blume still sees plenty of such acolytes: “Moms come up to me at book signings and describe how they’re telling their daughters, ‘These were my favorite books,’” she says. “I say, ‘Quit it! That’s the biggest turnoff!’” She advises mothers to instead just leave the books around the house. “And every so often, say, ‘You’re not ready to read this yet.’”