Speaker 1: I'm Hillary Clinton and this is you and Me Both.
Speaker 1: I am so thrilled to be joined this week by
Speaker 1: the groundbreaking author Judy Bloom. Since she began writing in
Speaker 1: the late sixties, Judy's books have struck a chord with
Speaker 1: so many millions of readers, from are You There, God,
Speaker 1: It's Me Margaret to Tales of a fourth grade Nothing
Speaker 1: to Blubber, Let's Not Forget Forever. That one was famously
Speaker 1: passed around among groups of friends. Some of the pages
Speaker 1: were dog eared because they had quote sex scenes in them.
Speaker 1: Her open, frank way that her novels engaged with subjects that,
Speaker 1: you know, we're considered taboo, like sexuality, bullying, divorce, religion
Speaker 1: really resonated with young people now. Of course, writing about
Speaker 1: those topics also got her into some hot water since
Speaker 1: the culture War. Back in the Reagan era, Judy's novels
Speaker 1: have consistently landed on the American Library Association's list of
Speaker 1: most Banned books. But today Judy Bloom is enjoying something
Speaker 1: of a renaissance. The film adaptation of Are You There, God,
Speaker 1: It's Me Margaret came out this past spring to critical acclaim,
Speaker 1: and it caused a resurgence of women of a certain
Speaker 1: age talking about their formative experiences with the story and
Speaker 1: Judy Bloom Forever, a new documentary film about her, is
Speaker 1: streaming now on Amazon Prime. There are so many things
Speaker 1: I want to talk to Judy about, including her efforts
Speaker 1: to combat book bands and the nonprofit bookstore that she
Speaker 1: and her husband run down in Key West, Florida. I
Speaker 1: am so delighted she's joining me on the podcast. Are
Speaker 1: you there, Judy Bloom, It's me Hillary.
Speaker 2: I am there, Hillary. Hello, Hello, good morning.
Speaker 1: Oh. I cannot tell you what a treat it is
Speaker 1: for me to talk with you. And I asked a
Speaker 1: couple of my childhood friends from ancient times who are
Speaker 1: still vacation with visit with, you know, catch up with
Speaker 1: all the time, you know what, they'd want me to
Speaker 1: talk to you about and to a person because we're
Speaker 1: a little older than you know when you started. They said, Oh,
Speaker 1: I wish she'd written when we were we were wondering
Speaker 1: about life, and they reminded me, and I just wanted
Speaker 1: to tell you that I remember in sixth grades, this
Speaker 1: would have been probably nineteen fifty seven, maybe fifty eight.
Speaker 1: All the girls in the sixth grade were ushered into
Speaker 1: our school auditorium. There was brown paper covering the windows
Speaker 1: in the doors leading to the auditorium. We had no
Speaker 1: idea why we were there. And we sat down and
Speaker 1: they showed us a film about mens duration, and I,
Speaker 1: along with the vast majority of my classmates, as we
Speaker 1: were recalling the other day when I was telling them
Speaker 1: I was talking to you, had never heard of it.
Speaker 1: I remember one of my friends saying, wait, I'm gonna bleed,
Speaker 1: I'll die. And you know I had a wonderful mother,
Speaker 1: but she never said a word. I came home from school,
Speaker 1: I said, we saw this film, and she goes, oh, oh,
Speaker 1: so now you understand. No, I did not understand. But
Speaker 1: none of us knew about this. This this this very
Speaker 1: natural thing that is the experience of you know, all
Speaker 1: of us. And I know I know from reading about you.
Speaker 1: You you didn't grow up with any more openness than
Speaker 1: I did.
Speaker 2: My mother didn't talk about anything, but my father did.
Speaker 1: Oh, my god, my father would never have sort of worried.
Speaker 2: My father did. My father is the one who told
Speaker 2: me about menstruation.
Speaker 1: Oh.
Speaker 2: I didn't understand anything that he was saying. It had
Speaker 2: to do with a lunar cycle and the moon being full,
Speaker 2: and so I would look out the window and if
Speaker 2: the moon was full, I said, this is now, is
Speaker 2: the time that all the women are having this wonderful experience.
Speaker 2: I couldn't wait to get my period.
Speaker 1: I really really wanted it. As you know from my books.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, thank goodness, you had a father like that.
Speaker 1: Most of us did not. The last thing my father
Speaker 1: ever would have talked to me about is anything personal.
Speaker 1: But you know your mother, and you've written about her,
Speaker 1: You've done interviews. I've read long, long interviews with you
Speaker 1: over the years. You know, you're so open about how
Speaker 1: you didn't have that kind of intimate, open relationship with
Speaker 1: your mom. But you know she started typing your early books, right,
Speaker 1: she did that open up a conversation or was it
Speaker 1: just like I will type this.
Speaker 2: It was so strange because she came to my house
Speaker 2: type to type it. She was a crackerjack typist. And
Speaker 2: when my father died, and he died early at age
Speaker 2: fifty four, she went to work at a law firm
Speaker 2: and she was their typist, one of their many typist,
Speaker 2: I guess, but they always said when when she went
Speaker 2: on vacation, they had to hire two people to take
Speaker 2: her place. She was great, and I have to say
Speaker 2: she is the person who really so encouraged me to
Speaker 2: read and never restricted what I chose to read. She
Speaker 2: would say, I think you would like this book, and
Speaker 2: Frank she.
Speaker 1: Kind of related to you then in a way through books.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, and that's a wonderful thing that parents and
Speaker 2: kids can do. Maybe you can't talk about me, but
Speaker 2: you can talk about this character in a book, and
Speaker 2: that's great. However, my mother came to the house, she
Speaker 2: typed my manuscripts and that was it. She did not
Speaker 2: ask questions. I did not let her type the manuscript
Speaker 2: for forever. She did type, Margaret, you know, these were finished.
Speaker 2: I can type. I'm a pretty good typist. But she
Speaker 2: would do the one that was going to the publisher
Speaker 2: and never said anything, Oh my, I never said a thing.
Speaker 2: Isn't that weird?
Speaker 1: It is weird, but it's weirdly touching too, you know.
Speaker 1: She wanted to be helpful. She couldn't really talk to
Speaker 1: you about even what you were writing. I do think
Speaker 1: a lot of it is generational, you know, women of
Speaker 1: her generation, my mother's generation born you know, in the
Speaker 1: early part of the twentieth century, you know, I don't
Speaker 1: think they had anybody to talk to. You know, my
Speaker 1: mother had a terrible childhood, and you know, just ugh,
Speaker 1: I don't know how she survived it. And so when
Speaker 1: I learned more about that, I just couldn't even imagine
Speaker 1: what it must have been like for her. But what
Speaker 1: you did, and what was so incredibly impactful about your writing,
Speaker 1: is that you kind of brought these very real childhood,
Speaker 1: personal growing up experiences to public light. And maybe a
Speaker 1: mother or a father or both couldn't talk to their child,
Speaker 1: but you, in a way were talking for them because
Speaker 1: you were allowing these issues, these concerns that kids have
Speaker 1: to be legitimized.
Speaker 2: Well, I like that, Thank you. That's not what I
Speaker 2: was thinking. Of course, when I was writing, I was
Speaker 2: just you know, I had all this stuff inside me,
Speaker 2: and I had the creative and I needed a place
Speaker 2: to put it because I then remember my generation, we
Speaker 2: married early, we had our children early, and.
Speaker 1: Then what.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think I do think in my generation
Speaker 2: that's why there was so much divorce. You know, I
Speaker 2: was a junior in college when I got married, and
Speaker 2: you know, I had two kids by the time I
Speaker 2: was twenty five, right, and I liked taking care of babies.
Speaker 2: But then then what yeah, exactly, and I desperately needed
Speaker 2: the creative outlet. It could have been anything, but I
Speaker 2: was home with two little kids, and I did have
Speaker 2: stories running around in my head forever since I was
Speaker 2: nine years old. So it's like, okay, let's see, let's
Speaker 2: see if I can do this.
Speaker 1: So your first book, the title is so great, the
Speaker 1: one in the Kangaroo Kelly, that was forgettable. That's forgettable.
Speaker 2: It amazes me that it's still in print and that
Speaker 2: children read it, but little children, little children, And there
Speaker 2: was a publisher, and I guess a publisher, right, So
Speaker 2: how did you go from feeling, you know, the need
Speaker 2: to express yourself creatively to getting that first book in print?
Speaker 1: Well, I knew.
Speaker 2: Nothing, you know. It was extremely naive and I didn't
Speaker 2: know anybody who wrote or anybody in publishing. But I
Speaker 2: read magazines about, you know, how to publish your book.
Speaker 2: That first book was not the book that brought me
Speaker 2: my incredible editor, the best editor in the whole world,
Speaker 2: Dick Jackson. That was the next book, Iggy's House. So
Speaker 2: the first book was published just you know, I would
Speaker 2: send the manuscript out and it would come back and
Speaker 2: I would send it out to somebody else and somebody
Speaker 2: published it. But of course what's unforgettable to me is
Speaker 2: working with Jackson. I mean, Dick Jackson really discovered me,
Speaker 2: found me, nurtured me. Every one of his writers felt
Speaker 2: and still continues to feel the same way about him.
Speaker 2: How lucky, how incredible to find a person like this.
Speaker 2: And apparently he worked differently with every one of his writers,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: Like, does he do that with you?
Speaker 3: Wait?
Speaker 1: No, does he do that?
Speaker 2: It's almost like girlfriend's talking about a boyfriend. But it wasn't,
Speaker 2: you know. It was just a way that he found
Speaker 2: that he recognized what we needed and he gave that
Speaker 2: to us, and for me, all of my early books,
Speaker 2: not the Fudge books, because Dick and his partner Bob
Speaker 2: ver Owen said to me, oh, Judy, you're so prolific.
Speaker 2: This was ages ago. You're so prolific. Why don't you
Speaker 2: do those funny books that you're writing with somebody else?
Speaker 1: Wow?
Speaker 2: I know, And that was a big joke between us
Speaker 2: later on. You know, how did they let those books go?
Speaker 2: But they did, and they were very small company, and
Speaker 2: I was prolific in those days.
Speaker 1: They just couldn't handle your workload. I was getting the
Speaker 1: job done.
Speaker 2: I don't know how, because I used to think, someday, someday,
Speaker 2: when the kids are bigger, I will have much more
Speaker 2: time to do this.
Speaker 1: And you know what happened.
Speaker 2: The more time I had to do this, the less
Speaker 2: well I used my time.
Speaker 1: And what did your kids think about their mom writing books?
Speaker 1: Because clearly at some point they realized that there were
Speaker 1: books that you actually had written, maybe on the kitchen
Speaker 1: table or in a desk in their house somewhere.
Speaker 2: The first two were at the kitchen table on the
Speaker 2: college typewriter. You know, it evolved. I mean, if you
Speaker 2: ask them now at sixty and sixty two, what they
Speaker 2: would tell you something different. But my daughter was my
Speaker 2: first reader, you know, she was a reader always, and
Speaker 2: come home from school and she pulled the pages out
Speaker 2: of the typewriter and she would sit there and read them.
Speaker 2: And she says that I always watched her to see
Speaker 2: what she thought was funny, how she was reacting, and
Speaker 2: she would say, I can't read while you're looking at me.
Speaker 2: Stop looking at me. And my son says he remembers
Speaker 2: the clickiti clickiti claque of the typewriter but really and truly,
Speaker 2: I feel that I didn't make enough of the fact
Speaker 2: that I was a working mom because there weren't any
Speaker 2: on our cul de sac we lived in suburban New Jersey.
Speaker 2: I never let them see I think the struggle and
Speaker 2: the pain, and I think that's important.
Speaker 1: So if a listener is thinking to herself, let's say
Speaker 1: or himself, but let's stick with herself. Gee, I want
Speaker 1: to do that too. And they have like young kids
Speaker 1: at home, you think, now, maybe sharing more of that
Speaker 1: process with them, letting them see this is you know,
Speaker 1: something you care deeply about and it takes time, it
Speaker 1: takes discipline. Is that something you would advise?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean women weren't going out to work so much.
Speaker 1: Oh, I know, I did not personally know any friend
Speaker 1: whose mother worked. Now I had women teachers, so clearly
Speaker 1: I knew women work, right, but nurse.
Speaker 2: You could be a teacher or a nurse or if.
Speaker 1: You sometimes you go into a store or the library
Speaker 1: and you'd see other women. But that seemed very disconnected
Speaker 1: from my neighborhood because nobody worked. None of the women work.
Speaker 1: The men left in the morning, they came back for dinner.
Speaker 2: Yep. And it is very different. But I do think that.
Speaker 2: I don't say, sit down and talk to your kids
Speaker 2: about the struggle. That's not how I would do it.
Speaker 2: I mean, just let them see it. Let them see
Speaker 2: what's going on the struggle. Don't hide it from them.
Speaker 2: You know, my first rejection, I went into the closet
Speaker 2: and I closed the door and I cried. Yeah, they
Speaker 2: were very small. Did they need to see that? No,
Speaker 2: that was mine, that was private. My husband, my then husband,
Speaker 2: never saw it. I don't know if he was aware
Speaker 2: really of what was going on. He just he well,
Speaker 2: this is terrible, but he thought it was cute.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I thought it was that again, is something very generational.
Speaker 1: But there was something else going on with you, Judy
Speaker 1: that I've always thought because you didn't just write whatever
Speaker 1: the more advanced version of you know, see Dick Run,
Speaker 1: see Jane catch the ball. I mean you you began
Speaker 1: to tackle issues of you know, race and sex and religion.
Speaker 1: Those were taboos. I mean I remember being told you
Speaker 1: never talk about religion, and they didn't have to say
Speaker 1: don't talk about sex.
Speaker 2: That was just assumed that didn't exist, that did not exist.
Speaker 1: You know, we had no idea. How did you come
Speaker 1: to you know, really embrace issues that others were not
Speaker 1: writing about, let alone talking about. Was it kind of
Speaker 1: scary to you to do that?
Speaker 2: I really can't explain, except that when I started, I
Speaker 2: knew that I wanted to write books that I would
Speaker 2: have wanted to read when I was a kid, and
Speaker 2: I knew that I wanted to be honest. I felt
Speaker 2: that adults in my life anyway, adults kept secrets from kids.
Speaker 2: Everything was secrets. I hated secrets. And so I mean
Speaker 2: that in a way, that's how I started my life
Speaker 2: of you know, inventing stories inside my head when I
Speaker 2: was nine years old. Because of the secrets and because
Speaker 2: nobody told me so, I had to make up the
Speaker 2: stories that went with the secrets. And I did want
Speaker 2: to be honest. And I have kids say to me,
Speaker 2: what's your superpower? I now have decided what my superpower is.
Speaker 2: It's my memory.
Speaker 1: Oh that's fascinating in what way.
Speaker 2: I had a fantastic memory for the details of being
Speaker 2: a child, and I still do. I mean, I may
Speaker 2: not know where my glasses are, or my keys, or
Speaker 2: you know, and remember to put on my little hearing aids,
Speaker 2: but I still have that memory for long ago.
Speaker 1: And children are very observant, and so children know a
Speaker 1: lot more than they are given credit for, don't.
Speaker 2: They They did?
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: I have a bookstore in Key West, and when especially
Speaker 2: a young child comes into the bookstore, you know, we
Speaker 2: can look into each other's eyes. I think this anyway,
Speaker 2: and we recognize something there. I'm talking four or five
Speaker 2: six year old. You know, the parent or the grandparent
Speaker 2: has always read this book. Get this book, you know,
Speaker 2: and I just make eye contact with the child. I'm
Speaker 2: careful in the bookstore not to say to the parents, no,
Speaker 2: don't do that. And then when it's older kids, it's like,
Speaker 2: please please just let them brows and choose their own books.
Speaker 2: Don't stand there and say, no, that's not a real
Speaker 2: book because it's a graphic novel. Don't stand there and
Speaker 2: say that's a comic book and you can't have you know.
Speaker 2: I don't know about you, but I, as much as
Speaker 2: I read books, I love comic books.
Speaker 1: I did too.
Speaker 2: Brenda star Girl reporter.
Speaker 1: Oh, Brenda Starr covered you know, she was carried in
Speaker 1: the Chicago Tribune. She was and this sounds ridiculous, but
Speaker 1: you'll understand she was the only grown up woman character
Speaker 1: that I knew of who had a job, and not
Speaker 1: just a job, a glamorous, exciting job, and a boyfriend
Speaker 1: with a patch over his eye. I mean, the whole
Speaker 1: thing was so seductive, and I was a faithful reader
Speaker 1: because it took me out of my present circumstances, because
Speaker 1: none of that existed where I was living.
Speaker 2: You probably don't remember this, but once I interviewed you
Speaker 2: for the twenty fifth anniversary, I think of Sesame Street
Speaker 2: and this has to do with Brenda Star. And that
Speaker 2: morning I was getting dressed and George, my husband, took
Speaker 2: a photo of me a little polaroid and it says
Speaker 2: Brenda Star, girl reporter going off to meet with Hiller.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I love that. Oh you've got to
Speaker 1: send me a screenshot of the polaroid.
Speaker 3: Oh, I love it.
Speaker 1: We're taking a quick break. Stay with us. You know
Speaker 1: the recent documentary about you. I had a documentary done
Speaker 1: about me. I don't know about you, but it's scary.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, you basically agree and then, at
Speaker 1: least in my case, is kind of out of your
Speaker 1: hands and off we go. Did you find that as well?
Speaker 2: I didn't want to do it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I didn't want to do it.
Speaker 2: But I like the filmmakers very much and I trusted them.
Speaker 1: Right, That's how I ended up. But that was not
Speaker 1: an easy process to get to. But you know, one
Speaker 1: of the things that struck me that's in the documentary
Speaker 1: is the correspondence that you've had over the years with
Speaker 1: your readers. I didn't know that. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: I had a similar experience in a way when Chelsea
Speaker 1: was five years old. She wrote a letter to President
Speaker 1: Reagan because we were talking at the dinner table that
Speaker 1: he was going to Germany and he was going to
Speaker 1: go visit a cemetery where a lot of Nazis were buried,
Speaker 1: and Bill and I were, you know, really unhappy about that,
Speaker 1: and we were talking about it over dinner, and so
Speaker 1: Chelsea started asking these questions like, you know, what does
Speaker 1: this mean? Who were the Nazis? What happened? And then
Speaker 1: she said she wanted to write a letter to President Reagan.
Speaker 1: And she wrote a letter, you know, asking us to
Speaker 1: help her spell. But she basically said, dear President Reagan,
Speaker 1: please don't go visit the cemetery. The Nazis were not nice.
Speaker 1: I saw the sound of music. Oh that's how we
Speaker 1: related it to her, and we sent the letter off
Speaker 1: and she never got a response. I mean for weeks
Speaker 1: she would, you know, come home from school and say
Speaker 1: did I get a letter? And I'd have to tell
Speaker 1: her no. So when Bill was elected president and we
Speaker 1: were moving to the White House, I asked her, I said, well,
Speaker 1: is there anything you particularly want your dad to do
Speaker 1: as president? And she said, I want him to make
Speaker 1: sure that every child who writes him a letter gets
Speaker 1: an answer. So we set up this big correspondence unit
Speaker 1: literally to answer kids letters. Most of whom in it
Speaker 1: were volunteers, wonderful people who took a day out of
Speaker 1: their week to come do this. So when I learned
Speaker 1: that you had correspondents with kids who read your letters,
Speaker 1: and those letters are now in the Yale University Archives,
Speaker 1: I was so touched. Talk to us about how that
Speaker 1: started and what it meant to you.
Speaker 2: Well, it was a huge surprise, you know, that first
Speaker 2: that somebody read my book, and then that that child
Speaker 2: would think to write to me. That the first letter
Speaker 2: was from a twelve year old girl, and I guess
Speaker 2: she had read Margaret because that was public. That was
Speaker 2: my third published book and the first one that really
Speaker 2: got out there. And I mean I was so excited.
Speaker 2: Of course I wrote back, and that was the beginning.
Speaker 2: It did reach a point where it took over my life.
Speaker 2: It became so difficult. Then I didn't know what to do.
Speaker 2: I actually consulted with a therapist because there were some
Speaker 2: as you know, that went on for years and years
Speaker 2: and years. You actually didn't get in the documentary the
Speaker 2: really well you got one serious woman. There there were
Speaker 2: many others, many, many, many others.
Speaker 1: I want our listeners to understand if they haven't seen
Speaker 1: the documentary, that we're talking about children writing you with
Speaker 1: serious problems, even you know, threatening suicide and just pouring
Speaker 1: their little hearts out to you.
Speaker 2: Yes, I mean with that comes a great responsibility, does
Speaker 2: It does? Because you can't ignore them. You want to
Speaker 2: try to help. And that's when I consulted with someone
Speaker 2: because there was one particular kid that I just grew
Speaker 2: to love and I I wanted to save her, and
Speaker 2: the professional helped me understand that I couldn't necessarily save
Speaker 2: her or any of the others, but I could be
Speaker 2: a supportive friend, and that just by acknowledging what they
Speaker 2: were writing about, you know, acknowledging their lives and their problems,
Speaker 2: that that was a good thing to do.
Speaker 1: You know, I've had somewhat similar experiences in public life
Speaker 1: where people either write to me or whisper in my
Speaker 1: ear and confide, you know, deeply personal stories, struggles, questions,
Speaker 1: And on the one hand it is such a responsibility,
Speaker 1: it's also such an honor that, for whatever reason, some
Speaker 1: other human being, often a young person, is willing to
Speaker 1: open up to you. You know, people want to be
Speaker 1: heard and they want to be seen, especially children. You know,
Speaker 1: I was talking to a group of teenagers because you know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of legitimate worry about what's happening with teens,
Speaker 1: especially teenage girls today, and the rise of anxiety and
Speaker 1: depression and eating disorders, and the linkage with you know,
Speaker 1: what happens on social media. And I asked this, you know,
Speaker 1: a group of fifteen sixteen year olds what they thought
Speaker 1: could be helpful. I mean, were there you know, programs
Speaker 1: or people. And one of them said to me, you
Speaker 1: just don't understand how hard it is to talk to
Speaker 1: your own parents.
Speaker 2: That's just what I was going to say. Why did
Speaker 2: they all write to me, or why did they write
Speaker 2: to you and confide in us? Because it's so hard
Speaker 2: to talk to your parents. It's so much easier when
Speaker 2: you don't see the person at the breakfast table the
Speaker 2: next day. You know, in my day, I mean, it
Speaker 2: was a letter. So they was writing a letter and
Speaker 2: sealing it and putting a stamp on it, putting it
Speaker 2: in the mailbox, and.
Speaker 1: That was it.
Speaker 2: They got out what they had to get out. They
Speaker 2: didn't know I would answer them. They just got it
Speaker 2: out in a safe way. They didn't want to talk
Speaker 2: to their parents about it.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back. And now, of course we're engaged,
Speaker 1: and yet another battle over children what they read, the
Speaker 1: books that are in libraries, school libraries, you know, by
Speaker 1: outspoken groups of parents who are reaffirming that stereotype. You know,
Speaker 1: I don't want to talk to my children about these
Speaker 1: difficult issues, and I don't want anybody else either talking
Speaker 1: to them or writing something.
Speaker 2: And I don't want them reading it because it's dangerous.
Speaker 2: They're afraid. I mean, that was pretty much the way
Speaker 2: it was in the eighties, the book banning craze of
Speaker 2: the eighties. It's never gone away, but it's hasn't been
Speaker 2: so intrusive. But today what's so scary is that it's
Speaker 2: coming from government it's coming from state legislatures. It's coming
Speaker 2: for you know, I'm a resident of that state. We
Speaker 2: used to say, oh, Key West, isn't Florida, you know,
Speaker 2: we used to be able to joke about that. But
Speaker 2: we have the same governor, we have the same legislatures.
Speaker 2: I've I just read that forty percent of the book
Speaker 2: banning in school libraries is from the state of Florida.
Speaker 1: That doesn't surprise me.
Speaker 2: So very scary stuff going on.
Speaker 1: And it's also it allows literally one parent with I
Speaker 1: would argue a political agenda to demand that a book
Speaker 1: be withdrawn. And as you know far better than I,
Speaker 1: you've consistently had some of your books on the American
Speaker 1: Library Association's lists of most challenged books. I hope you
Speaker 1: wear that as a badge of honor. And that does
Speaker 1: go all the way back to the nineteen eighties. How
Speaker 1: did you feel when somebody like Phyllis Schlaffley, for example,
Speaker 1: of a name from the past, would attack you and
Speaker 1: attack your books and say that the material was too
Speaker 1: sexually explicit and everything they accused you of When that
Speaker 1: happened to you, were you as shocked as I think
Speaker 1: you should have been.
Speaker 2: Yes, and you know, it was depressing. I'm a person
Speaker 2: who likes to get out there and do something, and
Speaker 2: I didn't know what to do, and the publishers weren't
Speaker 2: so much behind us then as they are now. Interest
Speaker 2: I found then, or maybe they've found me, the National
Speaker 2: Coalition Against Censorship, And once I found them, I knew
Speaker 2: what to do. I had my people. You know, that's
Speaker 2: the thing is, you're not as lone as you think
Speaker 2: you are. You're not the only person this is happening to,
Speaker 2: just like getting your period right, the other people being banned,
Speaker 2: and here is an organization that's working to promote the
Speaker 2: freedom to read, intellectual freedom.
Speaker 1: It can be so liberating and empowering. It was. It
Speaker 1: really cuts through the loneliness that not just children but
Speaker 1: people feel, you know, to discover there is somebody else
Speaker 1: like you, somebody else has bumped up against that obstacle.
Speaker 1: And you know, but you've said before, I read somewhere
Speaker 1: that you can't debate the zealots, but you got to
Speaker 1: find a way to fight back, and you do have
Speaker 1: to try to rally other people, fair minded people who
Speaker 1: don't want books to be banned in our country. How
Speaker 1: do you find that balance? Really tough between advocacy that's
Speaker 1: productive and then getting into these you know, downward spiral
Speaker 1: loops of arguing with the zellots.
Speaker 2: I now think that the way to go, Yes, people
Speaker 2: should speak out, but I think the way to go
Speaker 2: is to join forces with the great organizations that we
Speaker 2: have pen America National Coalition against Censorship, ALA, American Library Association.
Speaker 2: They all have programs, they know what to do. And
Speaker 2: this is what I tell people who ask me. I say,
Speaker 2: join up, join up, find out, join just if you
Speaker 2: can even read one website and get your information and
Speaker 2: then become part of this.
Speaker 1: And I hope all of our listeners will follow that recommendation,
Speaker 1: because you know, we need more and more people supporting
Speaker 1: the organization and speaking out. You know, I have to
Speaker 1: say that the recent filming of your extraordinary book Are
Speaker 1: You Their God, It's me, Margaret, must have also been
Speaker 1: challenging for you because it was like putting one of
Speaker 1: your children out there, wasn't it to find out what
Speaker 1: people thought?
Speaker 2: Well, I waited fifty years. I waited fifty years to
Speaker 2: find the right team, right, Yeah, that was important and
Speaker 2: I'm so glad I waited because most writers of the
Speaker 2: original material don't like their movies.
Speaker 1: I've heard that from everything.
Speaker 2: I love this movie. I love it, love it, love it.
Speaker 2: I just I loved every minute of working with them,
Speaker 2: you know. I mean I didn't write the screenplay, but
Speaker 2: they were always sending me drafts, and we were always
Speaker 2: talking about backstories. They were very inclusive. I was on
Speaker 2: the set for five weeks, and I do love it.
Speaker 2: I love the movie, and I'm so happy that it
Speaker 2: got such wonderful reviews.
Speaker 1: I also thought that book in particular, not only stood
Speaker 1: the test of time, but was theologically very very important.
Speaker 2: Nobody knew then.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I meet adults who come into the bookstore and they say,
Speaker 2: I just read Margaret again, and you know, I don't
Speaker 2: remember anything about religion. Did you put that in later?
Speaker 2: It's like, no, it was always there. They just remember,
Speaker 2: you know, what was important to them at that time,
Speaker 2: which was puberty and friends and family.
Speaker 1: You know, I remember when I was I was writing
Speaker 1: It Takes a Village back in the early nineties, and
Speaker 1: I had a chapter about, you know, kids are theologians
Speaker 1: in part you know, motivated by your book because kids
Speaker 1: start asking questions when they're relatively young. You know what
Speaker 1: happens when you die? Or does God watch us all
Speaker 1: the time? And you know, that's another subject that is
Speaker 1: really important to children, but there aren't very many books
Speaker 1: that have written about it. But you're taking Margaret and
Speaker 1: putting her into a kind of dialogue with God was
Speaker 1: so important.
Speaker 2: That was me, That was me. I had a dialogue
Speaker 2: going really to make sure that my father was safe
Speaker 2: in two school years when we weren't together, which is
Speaker 2: the story to Miami, right, yeah, that's a story of
Speaker 2: starring Sally J. Freeman as herself. But that is when
Speaker 2: I became I became kind of obsessive about these prayers
Speaker 2: that I invented and I had to do this and
Speaker 2: I had to do that to make sure my father
Speaker 2: was safe. It was like what a burden for a
Speaker 2: nine year old, right, oh, yeah, to think it's up
Speaker 2: to me to keep him safe. And then he was
Speaker 2: flying back and forth and flying was was something well
Speaker 2: it was so new then, commercial flying, commercial flights so new,
Speaker 2: and I had to work so hard to protect him.
Speaker 1: And you're so right that children often assume responsibilities for
Speaker 1: what happens in their families that their families have no
Speaker 1: idea about it. When you said that. I just remembered
Speaker 1: this game we used to play when we walked to school,
Speaker 1: and we you know, we'd be chanting if you step
Speaker 1: on a crack, you'll break your father's back. Remember that,
Speaker 1: because the sidewalks had, you know, cracks between the squares
Speaker 1: of concrete, and I mean we would be totally obsessed
Speaker 1: with not stepping on a crack so we wouldn't break
Speaker 1: our father's back.
Speaker 2: I mean, in my case, it was break your mother's back.
Speaker 2: I don't know why that was.
Speaker 1: I literally could talk to you forever, but I want
Speaker 1: to before we have to wrap up. I wanted to
Speaker 1: ask you know, you're you've said that you're not going
Speaker 1: to write any more books. You're eighty five, now you're
Speaker 1: running the book store in Key West. You and your
Speaker 1: husband have a really full and loving life from everything
Speaker 1: that has been described, taking walks and doing things together.
Speaker 1: What did that feel like to say I'm going to
Speaker 1: stop writing books.
Speaker 2: It felt great, you know what, fifty years, five oh years,
Speaker 2: and it changed my life and I'm so glad that
Speaker 2: I had it in my life. But then it got
Speaker 2: to be you know, locked up, locked up for another
Speaker 2: five years because the last book, and I'm so glad
Speaker 2: I went out on this book. Took me five years,
Speaker 2: so it's a relief. People say, don't you miss writing,
Speaker 2: and like, no, I know, I don't even know how
Speaker 2: I did it, you know, but I did it, and
Speaker 2: I do have a full life. And I'm grateful that
Speaker 2: the bookstore came along just when I said, that's it,
Speaker 2: I'm done writing.
Speaker 1: That's so great to hear here, because you know, when
Speaker 1: chapters close in your life, you can either feel regretful
Speaker 1: and disappointed, or you can sort of look forward to, Okay,
Speaker 1: what's the next adventure. What happens you know now? And
Speaker 1: I've heard you've taken up or you can be found
Speaker 1: tap dancing.
Speaker 2: Oh that goes back to I think I started tap
Speaker 2: dancing when I moved to New York. Originally I was
Speaker 2: maybe forty ish and I saw a tap dancing class
Speaker 2: above the bagel shop on eighty whatever Street, and I said,
Speaker 2: I'm going to do that, and I did become obsessive
Speaker 2: about it. I loved it. I didn't want to do
Speaker 2: anything but go to tap class. And when we moved
Speaker 2: to Key West, of course, you know, I put away
Speaker 2: my tap shoes and then we found we had a
Speaker 2: teacher in Key West, and so I took out the
Speaker 2: top shoes and loved it. I haven't done it in
Speaker 2: a while.
Speaker 1: I'm a little bit.
Speaker 2: You know what my doctor says to me. The only
Speaker 2: advice I have is do not fall.
Speaker 1: That's the last word my doctor says to me every
Speaker 1: time I see her, do not fall.
Speaker 2: And so I don't know, but maybe I love it.
Speaker 2: I still walk along the street and I do certain
Speaker 2: riffs that I learned way back then. Yes, I can still.
Speaker 2: I can still top dance. It's because my mother said,
Speaker 2: Jewish girls don't tap. Jewish girls take ballet. And I
Speaker 2: loved ballet, but I also wanted to slap my feet
Speaker 2: on the ground. It's so satisfying, and so I waited
Speaker 2: a long time to do it. But then I I
Speaker 2: got pretty good. I bet you were not great, not great,
Speaker 2: but pretty good.
Speaker 1: Well to finally wrap up, Judy, which is just such
Speaker 1: a joy talking to you, I'm wondering if you were
Speaker 1: to talk to your own eight or nine year old self,
Speaker 1: you know, back when you were growing up, or or
Speaker 1: fast forwarding talk to eight or nine year olds today,
Speaker 1: what would you say about both the traditional and some
Speaker 1: of the new challenges that kids have to navigate.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, listen, listen to yourself, ask your questions
Speaker 2: to somebody you trust, and never give up. You know,
Speaker 2: that's the thing determination really, when you say get the
Speaker 2: job done, it's determination as much as talent or anything else.
Speaker 2: It's I am determined. So find what you love to
Speaker 2: do and do it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, Judy Bloom, thank you for finding.
Speaker 4: What you love to do all those years ago, starting
Speaker 4: you know, when you literally were a child with all
Speaker 4: your questions and your curiosity, and then sharing everything that
Speaker 4: you were thinking and giving young people but some not
Speaker 4: so young, the comfort.
Speaker 1: And really the sense of belonging that your stories have provided.
Speaker 1: And I hope I'll get to see you tap dance
Speaker 1: sometime in the future. If I ever get to Key West,
Speaker 1: I'm coming right to that bookstore.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Y. I don't know if you'll see me
Speaker 2: tap dancing, but I surely would like to see you.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1: For more of Judy, go check out the documentary Judy
Speaker 1: Bloom Forever on Amazon Prime, or go back and read
Speaker 1: one of your favorite books by her. You know, speaking
Speaker 1: of books we loved as kids. When I was younger,
Speaker 1: I was a big fan of the Nancy Drew series.
Speaker 1: I still love a good mystery, and especially one that
Speaker 1: is written by my dear friend and one of my
Speaker 1: favorite authors, Louise Penny, who's also been a guest on
Speaker 1: this podcast. Louise is best known for her award winning
Speaker 1: series revolving around Inspector Gomash up in Quebec and the
Speaker 1: tight knit community in eastern Quebec that he is part of.
Speaker 1: You know, for some reason, that little town of Three
Speaker 1: Pines always seems to be in the throes of yet
Speaker 1: another murder, and Louise and I had so much fun
Speaker 1: collaborating on our own political mystery thriller, State of Terror.
Speaker 1: When I had her on the podcast, we talked about
Speaker 1: how she first discovered mysteries.
Speaker 3: I remember clearly the first time, because I was a
Speaker 3: voracious reader as a child, but never crime novels. And
Speaker 3: I remember coming up the stairs and my mother came
Speaker 3: out of the bedroom and it was mid afternoon or so,
Speaker 3: and she was holding a book and she said, you know,
Speaker 3: I just finished this book and I think you'd like it.
Speaker 3: And she handed it to me and it was still
Speaker 3: warm from her hands, and it was an Agatha Christian.
Speaker 3: It was the first time that my mother and I
Speaker 3: I shared a book. It's become magic since then, and
Speaker 3: I've had such a soft spot for Christy since then
Speaker 3: as well, and for crime novels.
Speaker 1: You can find this conversation and so many others with
Speaker 1: people I admire. Just go to You and Me Both
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to podcasts. You and Me Both is
Speaker 1: brought to you by iHeart Podcasts. We're produced by Julie Subren,
Speaker 1: Kathleen Russo and Rob Russo, with help from Kuma Abadeen,
Speaker 1: Oscar Flores, Lindsey Hoffman, Sarah Horowitz, Laura Olin, Lona Valmorro
Speaker 1: and Lily Weber. Our engineer is Zach McNeice, and the
Speaker 1: original music is by Forrest Gray. If you like You
Speaker 1: and Me Both, tell someone else about it. And if
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Speaker 1: You can subscribe to You and Me Both on the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening and I'll see you next week.