Forever...

Early life and education

Judy Blume was born Judith Sussman on February 12, 1938, in Elizabeth, New Jersey, where she spent her childhood. Raised in a Jewish family, she grew up attentive to the stories and private concerns of everyday life. Blume has recalled that she carried many stories in her imagination before she began putting them on paper. She attended New York University and earned a bachelor’s degree in education in 1961. Her interest in the experiences of children and adolescents became central to a career that would bring subjects often avoided by adults into books written for young readers.

Blume began writing in 1959. Her first published book, The One in the Middle Is the Green Kangaroo, appeared in 1969. From the beginning of her career, she developed a voice that was conversational, funny, and unafraid of embarrassment. Rather than treating children’s worries as trivial, she made their questions and feelings the substance of her stories.

Books and career

Among Blume’s early and best-known books are Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret (1970), Then Again, Maybe I Won’t (1971), Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing (1972), Deenie (1973), and Blubber (1974). Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing introduced Peter Hatcher and his younger brother Fudge, characters who returned in later books. In Forever... (1975), Blume addressed first love and teenage sexuality with unusual directness. Her children’s and young adult novels examine puberty, friendship, family life, religion, identity, and the sometimes uncomfortable process of growing up. She also wrote adult fiction, including Wifey (1978), Smart Women (1983), and Summer Sisters (1998). Across these different audiences and subjects, her work often considers how individuals negotiate expectations and try to understand themselves and one another.

Blume’s writing reached a large international readership: her books have sold more than ninety million copies and have been translated into more than thirty languages. Her influence comes not only from that popularity, but from her willingness to take young people seriously. She wrote about bodily changes, questions of faith, sexual feelings, and friendship conflicts at a time when such subjects were often softened or omitted in books for children and teenagers. The candor that drew readers also made several of her works targets of challenges and bans. Blume became a prominent advocate for freedom to read, arguing through her public work against censorship and for young readers’ access to books that address difficult subjects.

Recognition and legacy

In 1996, the American Library Association awarded Blume the Margaret A. Edwards Award for her contribution to young adult literature. That year, New York University also recognized her as a distinguished alumna. In 2000 she was named a Library of Congress Living Legend, and in 2004 she received the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. Later honors included the E. B. White Award and the Carl Sandburg Literary Award. Her books continue to be read across generations, and readers have often credited them with giving clear language to experiences they had thought were too private or awkward to discuss. As of 2026, Blume is living. She is widely regarded as a major American author for children and young adults, both for the empathy and humor of her fiction and for her enduring defense of young people’s right to read.