What Judy Blume’s Books Meant

Another fan, the novelist Curtis Sittenfeld, who will interview Ms. Blume this month as part of the tour, said she planned to ask what it was like to be the catalyst for such powerful emotions.

“I wonder if it is burdensome or challenging to be this repository for people’s preadolescent confusion,” she said.

Below are edited excerpts from interviews with six notable longtime readers on what they learned about sex, puberty and writing from Judy Blume.

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JOHN GREEN, author of “The Fault in Our Stars” and “Paper Towns”

The first Judy Blume books I read, I read when I was a little kid, when I was 8 or 9 years old, and they served as a kind of introduction to myself. I wasn’t able to say much about what it meant to be me or what it felt like to be me.

“Forever ...” and “Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret” taught me about girls and sexuality. Those books were my first paths into thinking about or having any understanding of girls. In elementary school, the books were paths to myself, and in middle school they were paths to, well, puberty is so [expletive] terrifying and weird, it’s another time when you have to become yourself again and figure out who you are. You feel like you lose control of your body. As much as I found my own puberty overwhelming and strange, I had no idea what was happening to girls, and “Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret” was very important to me in that respect.

If someone published “Forever ...” now, I would be like, this is great, and I haven’t seen a lot of books like this, and it’s almost 40 years old. It felt extremely emotionally honest about sex. There weren’t a lot of other voices in the culture that said it was O.K. to be sexual and that it was also O.K. to be really emotional. Particularly with young men, we’re told we’re allowed to be these sex maniacs but we’re not told we’re allowed to be emotional.

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JENNIFER WEINER, author of “In Her Shoes” and “Good in Bed”

I remember reading “Then Again, Maybe I Won’t” and thinking: “Oh my God, I’m so glad I’m not a boy. I’m so glad I don’t have to deal with embarrassing erections and wet dreams.” We all took sex ed, we all sat through the slide shows, but that was the first intimate sense I got of what it’s like to have a boy’s body.

Now there’s all this outcry about young-adult fiction — Is it too raw and is it too real, talking about eating disorders or cutting or rape? Judy Blume was doing this 35 years ago. She wrote about a girl who was having sex and getting pleasure from having sex and not getting punished for having sex.

CURTIS SITTENFELD, author of “Prep” and “Sisterland”

I bought “Forever ... ” at a school fair when I was probably 10. There was a used-book sale, and I picked it up and remember being in this big crowded gym and being like, “Uh, does anyone have any idea what this book contains?” I had stumbled upon this incredible raciness in this wholesome setting. I thought, like, holy smoke! It was very enthralling and very informative. I probably shouldn’t admit this, but I don’t remember the boyfriend’s name, but I remember the name of his penis. Do you remember its name? Isn’t his penis named Ralph?

MEGAN ABBOTT, author of “The Fever” and “Dare Me”

My distinct childhood memory is reading “Wifey,” her adult book, at a slumber party when I was in fifth grade. We didn’t understand the story at all or the fact that all of us had mothers who were a lot like the main character, a frustrated housewife. What we got was, “How can you have sex standing up?” I saw it on my mom’s bookshelf a few months later and said something about how it was a dirty book, and she said: “No it’s not. It’s not a dirty book at all.” And it felt like this huge revelation and relief somehow, because of course I had loved it and I had felt like I had done something wrong.

LENA DUNHAM, creator of HBO’s “Girls” and author of “Not That Kind of Girl”

With the kerfuffle that happened around my book, I realized how uncomfortable young kids having curiosity about each other’s bodies and trying to understand their own physicality and sexuality makes people. And Judy is one of the only authors who, at the time she started writing, acknowledged that kids have a fully formed consciousness and questions that aren’t innocent and a sense of what’s happening in the adult world around them. She had the bravery to write about growing up in a way that wasn’t vanilla and that acknowledged just how complicated being a little girl is.

“Summer Sisters” really mimics one of the closest friendships in my life and was a huge part of the genesis of “Girls” and of my desire to talk about female friendship in all my work. It’s so much about two young female archetypes butting up against each other. We all kind of look at our friends and see the version of ourselves we wish we could be, never really understanding the pain behind the mask. For me, it was so pivotal to read about female friendship as something that was as grand and romantic and complex as romantic relationships.

SAMANTHA BEE, cast member on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” and moderator of “An Evening With Judy Blume,” Tuesday at the 92nd Street Y

I’m 45 now, so I’m the exact generation that devoured her stuff. “Blubber” was my favorite. When I say that, it always surprises people. I think I sometimes saw myself reflected in the lead character, not from the bullying point of view, but from the point of view of a kid who’s trying to fit in. A striver. I recognize in myself that feeling of: “Oh, you’ve got to work hard to belong. You’ve got to figure it out.” I know that for a lot of people the sexuality in the books was an important part of it, but for me it was more about the social relationships. I really did feel like an outsider for most of my life. I had to give birth to my own children to finally feel I was part of something.

I’ve been trying to refamiliarize myself with her books for this interview. I mean, they’re still all so familiar to me; it’s like they’re in my DNA. The minute I started reading “Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret” again, I went, “Right, I remember this — got it.” My daughter is actually reading that book now. She’s 9, and she loves it. It’s so fun for me to watch that book reflected in her eyes.