The Beloved Judy Blume

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a production of iHeart Radio. (upbeat music) - Hey and welcome to the podcast, I'm Josh and there's Chuck. And it's just us, Jerry's on vacation, actually. As usual.

And this is Stuff You Should Know. - Have you read any Judy Bloom books? - Yes, I've read a bunch of them. I was going down the list checking off the ones I've read. - How interesting, me too.

I had a feeling you hadn't for some reason. - Because I'm soulless and robotic. - Nah. (laughs) - Meet, Mark.

Yeah, look, I bet you we've read a lot of the same ones. So let's go over that. - I bet two. - All right, now, okay, you ready? - Yeah.

- We'll say them all at the same time. - No, you say yours, and I'll say, whether that's one of mine. - All right. - Fricled juice?

- Did not read that one. - I did. - That was a good one. - I'm going to say that about all of them. - Tales of a fourth grade, nothing?

- I did read that. - I did too, but I didn't remember what that one's about, and I didn't go look it up. - Okay. - Otherwise, no, no, no, no, she'll have the great.

- I read that. - That was a good one. - Blubbers, the one aside from are you there, God, it's me Margaret, that I remember the most. - Yeah, I read both of those.

- And then I think that was it for me.

“- All right, I think I read all the, I read,”

then again, maybe I won't. - Okay. - And I also read Superfudge. - Oh, I did too. - I'm sorry, I did too.

I read Superfudge. - Yeah. So I think I read six or seven of these. - And I had a question mark next to then again, maybe I won't, I may have read that one,

or I just may have been aware of it. - Yeah, and then the one, what does it tiger eyes? Sounded familiar, but I'm not sure if I read those, but I think like, you know, one reason I wanted to ask is I think Judy Bloom

in her book, Skate Associated with Young Girls. - Sure. - And I was like, was I an outlier because I read six or seven Judy Bloom books and like, loved them all, or, you know, maybe we're both outliers.

- I don't think so. I don't remember being particularly odd or weird, at least in my elementary school. So the fact that you did too, I would guess, it was probably fairly normal.

I also read a lot of Ramona Quimbee books. Did you read any of those? - Now and ever had those. - I knew that the day I became at an adolescent, I guess, 'cause I was halfway through a Ramona Quimbee book.

- You're seven. - And I realized I didn't give a good damn, what was about to come next in Ramona Quimbee's life all of a sudden. - Oh, no. - Yeah.

- And that was it for me and Ramona.

I always have fond memories over those for great fun books.

“- Yeah, well, I think it's cool that we both read this stuff”

and that our parents were, and my suspicion is that it was the same in my house is that they weren't paying attention enough, probably, to say, hey, should you be reading this book about a young girl going through menstruation

and discovering her sexual awakening? - Right, exactly. My parents paid enough attention. I remember my dad, like some tense conversations, I barely overheard.

- Oh, man, goodness me. - Here's a real jerk, grownup. - Yeah, well, here we are, though. Well, adjusted and kicking button life. - Yeah, you know, it's crazy.

I can't wait to get the one or two emails were like, that was really mean of your dad to call you fruity. - Right. - Yeah. - Get some support.

- Right. He didn't really everybody is what I'm trying to say. - No, okay.

“- I think you make a great point though, Chuck,”

like, I think it's, whether it's normal or not. I feel like it was great that we read those books. They were great books to start with, totally. But also, like it's just so rare for an adult to have that level of insight into what it's like

to be a kid growing into all of an adolescent again, right? That's just, people have memories of that. I have memories of it, but the vibe, the feeling and being able to convey it again, that is long on.

- Yeah, I totally agree. - So, she was good at what she did.

And she was a trailblazing pioneer of the first kind.

- Yeah, totally. And when you say was, Judy Bloom, amazingly is still with us in her late '80s, living down in Key West. But I think she's basically given up writing. She hasn't put out a book in a while.

She does run a book store down in Key West, which I would love to go to sometime. - I wish I had known the one time I went to Key West because I definitely would have popped in this year. - Yeah, so today we salute Judy Bloom.

And I guess let's go back to her childhood. - Sure. - Because she was born Judith Marsha Sussman on February 2nd, 1938 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, just outside of New York and grew up in a pretty

just normal middle-class Jewish family. Her dad was a dentist, her mom was a homemaker. And she, you know, seemed to have a, it was about to say a happy life, but she was a fraught kid about some stuff,

but not because she had like some awful life. It was a pretty normal life, but a lot of angst it seems like. - Yeah, and fairly well earned, I feel like for sure. But not because her family dynamic was screwed up.

It was like her father was her confident in her entire childhood, sounds like a really good father. I didn't get the impression that her mom was anything terrible,

“but I think her father played a more prominent role.”

- Yeah, I think so too. - But her mom gave her was the gift of loving to read, which is, man, there are a few gifts, so you give a kid better than that, you know? - Yeah, no kidding.

I know you and I have talked about this privately, but you know, when Ruby had was diagnosed with dyslexia, we were both as avid readers. Just, you know, sort of afraid that meant she wouldn't have that joy. And she's gotten over to the point where she's an avid reader

and it just makes it so happy.

And you always wonder what your kid's gonna be like.

And when I was reading about young Judy Bloom, making up stories, like life stories and back stories for her dolls and play things and creating characters and scenarios, like Ruby does a lot of that stuff. And I'm always wondering, like, you know,

she'd write stories and stuff like, is that her path? And like, who knows? But, you know, just like Judy Bloom, they both had these active, or have these active, kind of make-believe lives, which I think is super cool

and healthy and awesome. - Yeah, the thing that stuck out to me was that she would take piano lessons and then while she was practicing the piano herself, she, in her head, she was teaching imaginary students,

like many of the characters. - I love that. - She was giving them piano lessons. - Yeah. - And, you know, that's pretty cool in and of itself.

She actually kept a journal and notebook to chart their progress. The imaginary student she was teaching progress

“in her notebook, like that's how refined her imagination”

was as far as character development goes. - As a kid. - Yeah. That's super cool. And that reminded me, and again, not to just keep bringing Ruby into it, but I know you're a fan, so you don't mind.

- Yeah. - But when I took her to her first Hawks game when she was like eight or nine maybe, she sat there, and I don't think I've told this before, but she, I looked and she brought her a little notebook,

like she always does, just in case you get sport,

and she was keeping notes, and finally it was like, what are you noting? And she had noted all the players, and all of their shoes, and what brand, and what color shoes they had, and what number

they were, and everything. And I just thought, what an interesting thing to do. - Dead it, yeah. I mean, I was never into that kind of thing. So yeah, I feel like I'm definitely looking at it

from the outside in. - Yeah, I just, you know, when you're a parent, you're always like, what does that mean? And like maybe one day I'll look back and go like, all it all makes sense now or whatever.

- Sure. - Maybe she'll be an inventory or something. What's it called when you manage logistics?

- She'll be in charge of logistics

“of moving basketball players around the country.”

- Hey, great. - Yeah, that's cool. That's a great story, and yeah, I can't quite get it either. I mean, is it like a calming thing? - I don't know, I have no idea.

Well, let me know when you figure it out. - No, I'm interested. - It'll be in like 20 years, probably. So even though Judy Bloom was like, she came up with characters in a very rich internal life

as a kid, she apparently never particularly aspired

to be a writer. She ended wanting to find essentially like a creative outlet later on as we'll see, but as a kid that was, she wouldn't like this one. I'm gonna be as a writer, and so that comes later

in between then and now, but the opposite. So now would be, while she was a child, then would be as she's grown up a little more. - Oh man. You said that she had a kind of a fraught childhood

and as a result of that, she definitely suffered from anxiety as a kid, and this is like 1950s anxiety. So like the real deal kind where you saw like a psychoanalyst sometimes. - Yeah, certainly starting out in the 40s

when you're a little kid, especially a Jewish American kid, and more or two is going around. There was a big preoccupation in her family, and you know, every, probably Jewish American kids life about what was going on overseas, afraid that could happen

to them and their family, that kind of thing. And then really, this is so sad.

She was always just worried about her father dying

because a couple of her uncles died when they were younger in their early 40s of heart attacks, I guess, heart failure. - Yeah. - And she was just always worried about her dad

and, you know, doing kid stuff, like, you know, making a deal with God, like, hey, if I ace this test, it'll help my dad live, and just, it's just so sort of heartbreaking to hear that stuff. - Yeah, and if that sounds a little familiar,

then you probably have read, or you've there got, it's me Margaret. - Yeah. - So yeah, that was a big deal. Like that kind of guided her outlook.

“And that's a lot to worry about as a little kid, right?”

- Totally, yeah. - So another thing that I have to remember, I said,

that dad was like one of her biggest,

most prominent figures in her entire life as the kid, there were two years where she and her mom and her mother moved to Miami Beach because her brother had suffered some sort of chronic illness, I believe, and they were like, good Miami.

Apparently, the 110% humidity will be good. - Yeah. - And her father stayed back in Elizabeth, New Jersey, because he was a dentist, so he had to stay dentisting. - Yeah.

- And that separation, apparently, was so significant that she developed a obsessive compulsive disorder. Not only would she, like you said, kind of make deals with God, she would, you know, maybe turn a door knob, handle X number of times.

And as you know, she remembered to do that, her father would stay alive, like that kind of stuff. Again, we're talking about a kid who's less than 10 years old. - Yeah, that's a lot to take on. It just made me real sad to hear that.

But she also had a few, and you know, as we'll see, she wrote a lot about stuff that she knew, either places where she lived, or about things that were, like you said, and are you there, got its main Margaret kind of writing about that.

She also wrote later in life about a family who experienced these three plane crashes sort of near their house that affected their household. And that really happened to her, right? - Yeah, over the course of 58 days, less than two months,

there were three separate plane crashes from the Newark airport, which apparently was right there, that the runways were pointed essentially at Elizabeth. - Yeah. - And 100 people died from those three crashes,

11 of which were neighbors, friends and neighbors, like town folk from Elizabeth who had been on the ground in the wrong place at the wrong time. - Yeah, so that's obviously gonna, you know, color young kids, psyche, you know.

- For sure, I mean, what are the odds of something like that happening? I guess it was bad enough that they closed the Newark airport for a year and rebuilt the runways so that they weren't pointed at Elizabeth anymore.

- Yeah, that's, that's terrible. - Yeah. So the all those things together, certainly like shaped her childhood, her Priya adolescence. - Yeah, I think so.

- Yeah, and then as she'd kind of grew up, like her life was pretty normal 1950s, early 1960s type life. Although she was a little more on the alternative side, it looks like it sounds like she was a bit of a beatenic.

“- Yeah, I think she gravitated towards that.”

Like when she graduated and she graduated, you know, high school at the top of her class and then went to NYU and then there in the 50s it NYU, it sounds like she was definitely kind of

and drawn to the beatenic types.

“- Yeah, she was hanging with Luwell and Davis.”

- Should we take a break? - Yeah. - All right, we'll take it earlier break. It seems like a good college seems like a good breaking point to me.

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how to live forever on the I-Hart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - So we're back Chuck and Judy Bloom is stuck in college

'cause we took an ad break and we're going to dislodge her. She's a junior, it's 1959, she meets a guy named John Bloom. She was 21 at the time, he would have been 27. He was already like, well out of school, established himself as a lawyer,

and he said, hey, it's how about we get married. And she liked that idea. So they got engaged and they got married that year sadly, very, very sadly. I'm sure this hit her quite hard.

Her father wasn't there to walk her down the aisle because like a month before the wedding, he died from a heart attack. He wasn't early 40s, but he was early mid-50s, which is still very, very young.

- Yeah, I mean, to see your real eyes like that, like the one thing that she was worried about specifically the heart attack to must have been devastating. So she gets married in 1961, she graduated from NYU with a degree in early childhood education.

And the plan was to sort of, you know, you mentioned earlier, she didn't want to be a writer necessarily and, you know, one of the big reasons because it is in the 1940s and early 1950s when she was a kid, that just wasn't an avenue

that was as open to young women. It's a big reason that S.E. Hinton kept the initials S.E. when she wrote the outsiders and all those books, you know? - I didn't know S.E. Hinton was a woman. - Are you serious? - Yeah, that's serious.

- Yeah, I thought S.E. Hinton was a teenage girl when she wrote the outsiders. - I had no idea, wow. - Yeah, yeah. - I thought that was Stephen E. Hinton.

“- That's why she did it, I mean, it worked, I guess.”

She's like, I gotta be able to fool Josh Clark. - No, but I mean, like I had no idea.

This is literally the first time I'm hearing that.

It's not even like, oh, that vaguely rings a bell.

- Well, there you have it. - Pretty cool. - Teenage girl in high school when she wrote the outsiders. - That's really cool.

“- But again, that's why she kept the name S.E. Hinton”

because just publishing wasn't so open to young women writing books. So that's why Judy Bloom didn't. And when she was graduating college, she was just sort of on that track.

She was like, I'm gonna get my degree. I'm gonna get married, which I already did before I graduated. I'm gonna have kids and be a homemaker. And within a couple of years of graduating,

she had a daughter named Randy Lee and then a son named Lawrence Andrew. And was very happily, it seems, back in the New Jersey suburbs, while her husband was a turning. - Yes, so I had said though that she started writing

because she was like, I need to do something else besides just like raise kids and sit at home and dust. That just was not enough to fulfill her. - And as a person. So once both of her kids were in preschool,

she was like, I'll write some books for my kids. Or at least my kids' friends if the kids don't like it. So she started creating picture books, essentially.

The first one she came up was,

or at least the first one, her first published book, was a children's picture book called The One in the Middle is the Green Kangaroo, which is a great, great children's book name. But that didn't come like easy.

That wasn't like a, you know, first try, and she got her big break. - Yeah, I mean, I think she went a couple of years, like two, two and a half years getting rejection letter, after rejection letter, I think they dug out,

who helped us with this one? Julia. - Yeah, Julia found that she was getting like six no letters per week before she became like an overnight success.

“That's how the media like tends to view those things.”

But it seems like the big turning point was when she took a continuing ed class at NYU in the late 60s, like a writing class for like tween writing and teen writing. And she told NPR a few years ago that it was like such a monumental thing for her to like,

to know that she was gonna leave every Monday, leave her family, go to the bus to New York City, and like her husband was gonna feed the kids, and she wasn't gonna be home until later that night. And just knowing she had that creative outlet

really freed her up mentally, I think. - Yeah. - And led to that children's book, and then eventually led to the publishing

of her first novel Iggy's house.

- Yeah, it was a children's book. I guess maybe young adult book about, it's from the viewpoint of a little white girl named Winnie, who lives in the neighborhood where her best friend has just moved and a black family moves into the neighborhood.

And it's all about the racial tensions that develop white flight, but it's rather than Judy Bloom trying to make it from the viewpoint of the little girl from the black family that just moved in. I think she very wisely did it from the viewpoint

of this little white girl who's looking at from the outside and was kind of innocently trying to figure out what the problem was, what was going on. And this was 1970 when it was published, and this was not the kind of book

that children were finding in the library at the time by any means. - Yeah, for sure.

So that's her first one published in 1970

as far as a novel goes. And then right out of the gate, her follow-up book, again, also in 1970, was, are you there, God, it's me, Margaret? - Wow.

- So I mean, can you just imagine starting your career out with a stone cold classic like that? - It was eventually made into a movie that was actually pretty good.

I know she wasn't. - Yeah, it wasn't bad. It's hard when you have such a beloved book from your childhood.

“And I think that's why she waited so long.”

Overtures for years and years and years to like decades to try and get it made into a film and she always said no. And I think she finally found that it was time. And it turned out pretty good.

I'm waiting, Ruby saw it and I'm waiting for her to want to read these books. - Yeah. - So we got 'em all ready at the gate waiting for. Did you just idling in the bookshelf?

- Yeah, yeah, they're ready. I didn't see it, I saw I had a 7.3 on IMDB, which is definitely respectable in 99% on Rotten Tomatoes. So, you're not the only one you thought was pretty good. So this book that comes out, let's talk about,

are you there, God, it's me, Margaret, for a second. - Yeah. - The reason we referred to Judy Bloom as a trailblazer is because she was one of the first people riding this kind of book for this age group.

S.E.Hitton, her book, the outsiders takes place among high schoolers, same with like the Chocolate War by Robert Ludham, yeah, Robert Ludham's Chocolate War.

the cat ate my gym suit by Paula Danzinger. That was fairly, all of them had to do with ninth graders or up, right? Yeah, she's riding about like 11 year olds. It's going through the beginnings

“of what high schoolers are now dealing with, right?”

And the only person who beat her was S.E.Hitton from what I could tell, I think the outsiders came out in 1967, are you there? Are you there, God, it's me, Margaret, came out in 1970. And again, it was just totally different

from other books for kids at the time. Yeah, kids' books are still like this in a lot of ways, although there's a lot more variety now, thankfully. But back then, it was kind of like you present a big problem. Maybe there's a moral issue or something.

And there's some big grand solution that teaches a big grand lesson. And she was like, you know what, it's not that easy. And it's not that clean to grow up and black and white. So I'm going to write books about how messy it is and how maybe it's just a struggle sometimes.

And you know, there's just a lot of realism in her books of like what it was really like to be an adolescent. And, you know, critics, like them right away, the buying public love them. I think it was, are you there, God, it was in New York Times

bestseller and in New York Times book review outstanding book of 1970.

“And just kind of launched or right out of the gate, you know?”

- For sure. Yeah, and I saw it also really took off when it came out in a trade paper back version in 1972 at a price that like younger kids or audience could afford. They didn't have to ask their parents to buy it for them anymore. - Right.

- So one of the things that Judy Bloom was credited with is essentially approaching adolescence, approaching, well, not just menstruation, Chuck, but monarchy. - Remember that? - Yeah. - Monarchy used to be like a guest character,

a recurring guest character on early stuff. You should know weirdly enough. - Yeah, it's just a good trivia word. - For sure, but she approached it as like, it's a good thing, this is exciting.

Like her characters are like hurry up, I wanna hurry up. And one passage that's very, very famous is when Margaret and her friends who all collectively make up the pre-teens sensations, they're a little secret club where they get together

and talk about this stuff.

One of them has the idea that they wanna basically

“grow breasts, I guess, is the best way to put it.”

And so one of them suggests they like, move their elbows back and forth the long side of their, like they're basically pumping. And while you do that, you have to say, I must. I must, I must increase my bust.

- Classic. - I didn't know that came from that. I was associated with the Lord's of Asid. Remember that song? - Oh yeah, I had no idea that Jade for you

from Lord's of Asid was a Judy Bloom fan and was citing, are you there? Got it's me Margaret. - Pretty cool. And as he hit and was a teenage girl

when she wrote the outsider. - I'm just finding out all sorts of big stuff. - Yeah, it's pretty cool. I mean, monumental book right out of the gate. She is at the same time, this is going on,

kind of playing this housewife role. But again, realizing like, you know, I don't know if that was the life for me. I got married when I was young.

I never had sort of the freedom and adventure

that I've longed for in our life. And she said, you know, those are quotes, where she said, for 16 years writing, "Save Me in My Marriage." But by the mid 70s, the rules had changed.

So by 1975, she's like, you know, I think I want to divorce. - Yeah. - And she did that. She divorced her first husband, moved to New York. And then a year later married a physicist named Thomas Kitchens,

they're only married for about four years, but they had a pretty adventurous life. They lived in London and in New Mexico. - Right, I think at Los Alamos. - Oh, okay.

- So also by 1975, when she decided to get divorced from her first husband, the lawyer, she had put out 10 books between 1970 and 1975. - Pretty amazing. - Yeah.

Basically, almost all of the ones that you and I read

came out in that first like 10-year spurt. Like, she just wrote classic best-selling kids books, just right out of the gate. It's just really cool how much she was able to do, how much she was able to just connect with little kids.

I still don't get it. Like, I do not understand how an adult can do that. I'm just in awe of it. - Yeah, for sure. I know her 1975 book forever is not one that I read,

but that's a very big book for Emily. And I know a very big book for a lot of,

but Jinnex girls in particular,

“because that was the one where she had kind of been building up”

to, you know, talking about prepubescent stuff and adolescence and puberty.

And then finally, in forever,

it's like finally a character that wants to try and have sex for the first time. And Emily is just like, oh man, like to read that book is a kid. It was like a really big deal.

- Yes, and the book itself, I've seen it described as essentially a self-help manual for having safe sex, because she follows the main character, Katherine, through out like this process where she meets the dude,

she falls in love, she decides to add sex. And then before she has sex, she gives the like, plan parenthood to get condoms. - Yeah. - She, like, she basically learns anatomy

and reproductive stuff, like all sorts of different things that are laid out, like, this is what's happening to Katherine, but reader, I'm really talking to you

and I'm making it as plain as possible.

If you're gonna have sex, do this stuff because this is how you have safe sex. And of course, as we'll see, like, that just made it an absolute target for book challenges where you formally request a book

be bang out and to remove from the library. - Yeah, I mean, we can go ahead and talk about that if you want, I mean, as much as people love Judy Bloom, there was another set of people that hated an author, a grown woman writing about the realistic challenges

of, like, being a kid and being a tween, they're in a teen and going through puberty and all that stuff. So, she was a target right out of the gate for book banning, like you said,

and is on a lot of list is, you know, some of the most banned books of all time have been Judy Bloom books, which is like a, to me, a feather in your cap is an author 'cause that means you're probably telling the truth

about something. - Yeah, but as we'll see that drove her crazy, like, she is not one for censorship, you know? - Oh, yeah, for sure. - So, the key I saw to understanding

why everybody wants to ban Judy Bloom books

is that Judy Bloom was the epitome of second wave feminism.

Like all this stuff that Betty Freude and talked about, the feminine mystique is embodied in the writing of Judy Bloom. And Judy Bloom is talking directly to the next generation of kids essentially saying this is the way to be,

this is a good, this is a good way to become a good person and love yourself and treat other people kindly. And the arch rival to second wave feminism in the '70s and '80s and that's things till today is conservativeism. They don't want kids shaped like that.

So, when they see people, when they see books like that, Judy Bloom books in their library, they don't want their kids anywhere near it. So, they request the book be removed.

“That's why those books get challenged all the time”

is because they're a challenge themselves to conservative ideology, which largely revolves around the idea that if you don't teach kids stuff, they're not gonna do it.

They're not gonna think of it themselves and they're not gonna do it. And yeah, it seems preposterous to me too and it gets proven wrong, time and time and time again. But that's just how, that's just the conservative outlook.

That's just, they don't feel comfortable trying a different way in that respect. And, you know, I mean, that's a lot of people's viewpoint. It's not necessarily mine, but I think, you know, it doesn't mean it's inherently wrong.

I just don't like the idea of banning books, even though I get to an extent where they're coming from, they're trying to protect their children, not tick off Judy Bloom or the Liberals. - Yeah, and I think a lot of what that frame of mine comes from

is I want to be the decider of my kid learning what they learn when they learn it. As far as sexuality goes, I want to be in charge of that. I don't want it to come from some book, from some lady that they happen to check out at the library.

- 'Cause they had a good like cover illustration. - Yeah, and, you know, I get that to a certain degree, but like T.S., you know. (laughing) For Judy, as far as she goes,

she didn't think she was being very controversial. She thought I'm just writing in a very frank way about how kids really are. I was writing the truth, like Chuck Bryant will one day say. She didn't like the sterilized adolescence

that she saw portrayed in like other kids' books and, you know, books that ignored the angst of what was going on in kids' lives.

“So she thought, and I think she was very much”

correct in my opinion, and I'm sure yours, that she was doing a service by kind of portraying the realism of childhood and team them. - Yeah, better to learn this stuff and adult who knows what they're talking about,

who's been through this and knows how to describe the process of having safe sex than from Tina, who has an older brother that mentioned to her, like, you know, one time? - Yeah, exactly.

- So, yes, she has been, I think she's,

and the 90s, but also the 21st century.

“I think even in 2025, 2025, for 2025 school year,”

she was her novel forever, was on the list of most band books, the one that had,

it was basically a safe sex self-help manual.

So, yeah, you can kind of understand it, but it's not, it's not just that. There's been other ones too, like tiger eyes, is about a girl who's father is killed during a robbery of the 711 that he works at

and her coming to terms with that and suffering from grief and depression, and one of her friends is an underage binge drinker. I mean, that book gets banned a lot too. - Yeah, I just think it's so cool that she was brave enough

to like, bright these stories, you know? - Yeah, for sure, I mean, she was very brave, especially after it became clear, and I think it did fairly early on, that there was a large segment of America

that viewed her books as controversial. And so, yeah, every time she sat down and wrote one of these, it was a greater and greater act of bravery.

“- Yeah, and a bigger and bigger middle finger.”

- Okay, pretty much.

Should we take our second break?

- Yeah. - All right, we'll be right back everybody with more on Judy Bloom. (upbeat music) - Hi, my love, starting your day can be tough.

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locked in a safe that the kids can't access. - Awesome. Learn how to have the conversation and how to agree to agree.org, brought to you by the ad council. - I'm Munga Shittikah there and I'm back

for the new season of the podcast Skyline Drive. This time I'm diving into a rabbit hole of peptides, organoids, blood boys, blue zones, and brain replacement to try to understand what this longevity of session is all about,

and what it really means to live forever for all of us. I learned about some rad science. - I can make a brain for you and then we can test what draw is the best for your brain, as opposed to his brain.

- Here are some hard truths. - I would expect Indians to age faster, but I did not expect it to be almost a four to five year acceleration and get myself into a world of trouble. - I'd say probably start bones smashing.

- That doesn't work. - Make it look more defined. They say it works, I don't know. - Listen to Skyline Drive, how to live forever on the I-Hart Radio App, Apple Podcast,

or wherever you get your podcast. (upbeat music) - All right, so I did mention, and this is the most revealing thing in the world, a lot of authors write about what they know,

but Judy Bloom definitely did that when she was living in Maine, she wrote a story said in Maine, when she lived in New Mexico, she wrote, I think it said moving. She wrote a book, you know, I'm talking about books here.

- Right. - She wrote a book, did I say movie? - I don't think so. - No, okay, I thought it said movie. - If you did, I'm sorry I missed it.

- Anyway, a lot of times she wrote books like set where she was living, or about sort of veiled, thinly veiled, sort of things that happened in her own childhood, not super unusual,

but she also did the same thing, you know, she wrote a adult books too. We're talking about her kids book. She wrote four novels for adults. They're all best-sellers as well.

And they were all sort of about her life experiences, starting with wifey in 1978 about a woman

he wanted to break out of that. - Yeah, pretty autobiographical. There's also smart women, which was about women navigating dating in relationships after post divorce.

- Yeah, there you go. - That was 83. There's also one that came out in 98 called Summer Sisters. It's about a female friendship. That sounds pretty sweet.

- Yeah, Summer's in the season. - And then in the unlikely event, from 2015, that was the one you mentioned, that she wrote about a family going through those actual playing crashes that she went through.

- Yeah, for sure. And you know, I said that critics, they certainly didn't love everything. I know, are either a guy that's me Margaret and a lot of her best-sellers got some good marks

with critics, but a lot of critics, kind of dunked on her for being a simplistic writer and those one critic who compared her writing

to a shopping list, and I always just thought

her work was just very readable for her audience.

“If that's simplistic, then I guess it works in my opinion, you know?”

- Yeah, I mean, we're talking about 11-year-old readers who may have only been reading for the last handful of years, you know? - Yeah, totally. - Yeah.

- But the difference is she didn't write down to them. - Right, so yeah, I think they were just people who just didn't like what she was writing and were taking pot shots wherever they felt they could. - I want to, this made me kind of want to reread

one of her books and just see how it grabbed me as an adult, you know? - Same. Yeah, I ran across a couple of people who were talking about some of these books and they're like, yeah, I spent three hours reading this

and it was well worth it. - Right. - You can just place through it. - Yeah, I feel the same way that. I'd like to read some more at least one or two.

And then the entire catalog of Sweet Valley High. (laughs) - Emily read those two, man. She reads a lot and read a lot as a kid. - Yeah, well, they were huge when we were younger.

- Yeah, and the other one for Emily was the Nancy Drew books. She still has her collection from her mom from when she was a kid and she read all of those. - That's really cool. - Yeah, my sister's read those

and the Hardy Boys a little bit. - Yeah. - I was a fan of Alfred Hitchcock's three investigators.

“Remember that, what does it send so familiar?”

- It was like Alfred Hitchcock's nephew and every once in a while they could call on Alfred Hitchcock. - Yeah, but they might have read some of them. - Investigate some. It was very Hardy Boys' esque.

- Yeah, yeah. - I like them for some reason. - What a time. - What a time to be alive. (laughs)

- So because of all of the book banning and stuff that went on, it's probably no surprise that she became very much a kind of central person in the anti-book banning movement. She has worked a lot over the years with the National Coalition Against Censor Ship.

She had a couple of projects in the '80s trying to get like parents and kids talking more and one was called the Kids Fund, capital K IDS in 1981. - Yeah, very cool.

- And that's to develop programs that encourage communication between parents and teens, the foster parent child discussions through books. And then she had a book. She, I don't think we mentioned one of the things

that she got a lot through a career was letters from kids who often told her things

that they would never tell their parents

and were just very open and expressive. So she, hopefully had permission, but she eventually put those out in a book called Letters to Judy, Colen, what your kids, which they could tell you, and this was in 1986.

- Yeah, I thought that was a pretty cool thing to do. - Yeah, same. So yeah, the real deal, she's not just in it for the dough. Although, I'm quite sure she's made quite a bit of dough

“because I think she's sold like 90 million copies”

of her books over the years. - Ooh. - Man, 40 different languages? - That's amazing. - Yeah, so she has made quite a bit of money,

but she's also legit in the fact that she really genuinely wants to figure out how to bridge the gap between parents and their kids to help both groups. She also, you said that she was like, really against censorship.

One of the things that she took a stand against was back in 2023 was a cancel culture.

Basically any kind of intellectual censorship,

or anything that was against any intellectual freedom, she was against. And she was talking about this in an interview with the Times of London in April of that year. And apparently they asked her about JK Rowling,

who at the time, and I think still basically every day was controversial because she made some repeated double-down comments about, that we're just transphobic, essentially.

- And out of that context in a different context, they asked Judy Bloom about that about JK Rowling. And she said that I love her. I am behind her 100% as I watch from afar. And the way that it was printed in the Times of London,

article, it made it sound like she was like, yeah, I'm backing up this person's transphobic comment, I'm behind her 100%. So she had to take the social media to be like, that was out of context.

“- Yeah, in fact, I think we should read her quote even.”

She said, I wholly support the trans community, my point, which was taken out of context is that I can empathize with a writer or any person who has been harassed online. I stand with the trans community and vehemently disagree with anyone who does not fully support the quality

and acceptance of LGBTQ+ people, anything to the contrary is total BS. - Yeah. - And I love that she took such a hard stance of like, hey, hey, don't misunderstand my words.

Like, I'm Judy effing Bloom. (laughs) - That was pretty much what's between the lines there for sure. - Yeah. So, let's see, you said that she lives in Key West now. You can go to books and books at the studios of Key West

and say hi, maybe buy something.

And then she's basically been really back

in the spotlight in the last few years, even though she's from what I understand still on hiatus since 2015 from writing, or at least publishing. But starting in 2023, there were not just that movie for are you there,

got it's me Margaret, which, like you said, people have been waiting decades for. There's a documentary that came out that year, Judy Bloom forever. - It's great.

- And yeah, and then in 2024,

“there was a biography, the Genius of Judy by Rochelle Bergstein.”

That was kind of like a scholarly exploration of how Bloom's work impacted kids. And then there was another one. It was authorized and then unauthorized autobiography called Judy Bloom, Colen, a life

that her friend, Mark Oppenheimer, published in March, 2026, and that she publicly removed her support from cut off contact with Oppenheimer, and then didn't explain to the public

or Oppenheimer why. - Yeah. I don't know why. - No, no one knows why, she didn't tell me. - She didn't tell me.

- Port over those books. And have been like, or that book, and have been like, maybe this is it, is this it? I don't know. Mark Oppenheimer's like, I have no idea.

She didn't explain it to me. There wasn't anything controversial.

She like, but she read the first draft,

and that was it. - Yeah, who knows? You know what you mentioned, she had those two divorces, but you'll be glad to know that she found long lasting true love.

Sometimes it takes a couple of times to get it right, but she met a guy named George Cooper in 1979, and they moved in together after their very first date, and got married eight years later in 1987, and that is who helps her run that book,

store down in Key West, so they're still together after all these years. - That is super cute. - Yeah, he's like, he's like a civil rights law professor, I think. - Yeah, that sounds about right.

- What else you got? I got nothing else. - I'm not neither. That's off to Judy Bloom. Even if you don't agree with her writing

and what she writes about to kids, you still got an admirer, bravery and courage. - Agreed.

“- And if you want to know more about Judy Bloom,”

doesn't really matter what age you are, go read some of her books, and while you're doing that, and you know what you could do a lot worse than checking it out at your local library to support its existence there.

- True. - And/or could do both, buy one from your local independent bookseller. - Yeah, maybe from Judy Bloom herself. - Sure, yeah. - You're in Key West.

- Or if you find a dude selling books out of the trunk of his cart, that is as independent of bookseller as you can find. - I wonder if you bought a point from Judy Bloom herself in her own bookstore and you're like,

"Oh my God, will you please sign this?" She's like, "I don't sign books. I'm Judy Bloom." - Right. - And please leave.

Here's your receipt. - Middle finger. - Let's see, Chuck just made himself laugh, which is wonderful. - That means this time for listener mail. (bell ringing)

- That means he's awake. - Balls jouer, Josh, and Chuck.

My husband and I finally had a chance

to see you live for the first time at Massey Hall in Toronto this June, which in real time was just a couple of nights ago for us. And it was the greatest show on Earth. - Yeah, we got a standing ovation.

- Yeah, it was really something. We are from a small community about two hours and a half north of Toronto and we're definitely not city people, but we figured it's worth it for Josh and Chuck.

My husband's been a huge fan and loyal listener for many years. I'll admit that I had personally listened because it gave me something to talk about with a guy who had eventually become my husband,

but it didn't take long before I genuinely fell in love for the show myself.

with the very beginning of our relationship.

- Nice. - Your show at Massey Hall for our expectations. I just wanted to thank you for giving us such a wonderful evening. Atmasphere was warm, relaxed, genuinely fun. My husband was smiling from ear to ear the entire time

and despite the anxiety that events like this can sometimes bring, he was comfortable and able to simply enjoy himself and that alone meant more to me than I can express. So thank you both for doing what you do.

Despite all the craziness in the world right now, it brought me so much joy to see a room for the people come together. Simply to laugh and learn and enjoy a couple of hours together.

“I think your Canadian listeners know just how kind”

and genuine you both are and we truly appreciate that you made the trip to spend some time with us here in Canada. We'd be lucky to have you back any time

because you're always welcome here.

Thanks for such a memorable experience. Warmly Kelsey and Andrew Sweet. Yeah, that is a world-class email, huh? Maybe best ever. That's the kind of email that removes borders

and just turns us into one great big North American continent. You know, agreed. Well, thanks a lot Kelsey and Andrew. Thanks for coming to see us and thank you Kelsey for such a great email.

And if you want to try to top that, let's see what you got. You can wrap it up, spank it on the bottom, and send it off to [email protected].

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