The Author Who Changed What Books Were Allowed to Say
Long before the internet gave teenagers a place to ask their most embarrassing questions, there was Judy Blume. She was the author who showed up in your bedroom via paperback, sat down beside you, and told you the truth — about your body, your feelings, your family, and your fears — without flinching, without moralizing, and without talking down to you. For tens of millions of readers across generations, she wasn’t just a favorite author. She was a lifeline.
Early Life & Origins
Judith Marcia Blume was born Judith Marcia Sussman on February 12, 1938, in Elizabeth, New Jersey, into a Jewish family. Her father, Rudolph Sussman, was a dentist, and her mother, Esther (née Rosenfeld), was a homemaker. She has one older brother, David.
Her childhood was not without its shadows — formative experiences that would later fuel her writing with rare emotional authenticity. When she was in third grade, her brother developed a serious kidney infection, prompting the family to temporarily relocate to Miami Beach for two years while he recovered. In 1951 and 1952, three separate airplane crashes struck her hometown of Elizabeth, killing a total of 121 people. Her father, as the local dentist, was called upon to help identify the unrecognizable remains — an experience that left a lasting imprint on young Judy’s understanding of mortality and loss.
As a child, she dreamed not of becoming a writer but of being a detective, a spy, a cowgirl, or a ballerina — which perhaps explains why her characters always feel so vivid and fully alive. She was a voracious reader and a natural storyteller, spinning elaborate narratives for her paper dolls long before she ever put pen to paper professionally.
She graduated from Battin High School in 1956 and went on to earn a degree in education from New York University in 1961.
The Road to Writing
Blume’s path to authorship was neither obvious nor immediate. After college, she became a homemaker and mother before she began writing — initially as a creative outlet, not as a career ambition. After two years of persistent publisher rejections, she published her first book, The One in the Middle Is the Green Kangaroo, in 1969 — a quiet debut that gave little hint of the literary earthquake to come.
The decade that followed was extraordinary. Between 1970 and 1980, Blume published at a pace and with a depth that few authors ever match, producing work that would outlast virtually everything else written for young people in that era.
Career Highlights
Blume has published more than 26 novels spanning children’s, young adult, and adult fiction, and was one of the first YA authors to tackle genuinely controversial subjects — masturbation, menstruation, teen sexuality, birth control, and death — in an honest, non-judgmental way.
Her most celebrated works include:
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. (1970) — Perhaps her most iconic novel, a first-person account of a girl navigating puberty, religion, and identity. It was named an Outstanding Book of the Year by the New York Times in 1970 and remains one of the most widely read coming-of-age novels in American literary history. It was adapted into a feature film in 2023.
Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing (1972) — The first book in the beloved Fudge series, introducing one of children’s literature’s most enduringly funny families.
Blubber (1974) — A frank and unflinching look at bullying from inside the social dynamic, decades before the word “bullying” entered mainstream conversation.
Forever… (1975) — Blume’s most controversial novel, telling the story of two teenagers navigating their first sexual relationship with honesty and without punishment. The American Library Association cited the book as groundbreaking for its honest portrayal of first love when it awarded Blume its Margaret A. Edwards Award in 1996. In 2025, Forever was adapted into a Netflix series.
Wifey (1978) and Smart Women (1983) — Her adult novels, both of which reached the top of The New York Times Best Seller list.
Summer Sisters (1998) — A novel exploring the complex friendship of two women that spent five months on the New York Times bestseller list.
In the Unlikely Event (2015) — Her most recent adult novel, exploring how tragedy can affect families across generations. It drew directly from the airplane crashes she witnessed as a child in Elizabeth, New Jersey.
Her books have sold over 82 million copies worldwide and have been translated into 32 languages.
Awards & Recognition
The literary establishment was slow to honor what readers understood immediately, but eventually the accolades came in force:
- In 1994, she received the Golden Plate Award from the American Academy of Achievement.
- In April 2000, the Library of Congress named her a Living Legend in the Writers and Artists category.
- In 2004, she received the National Book Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.
- In 2009, the National Coalition Against Censorship honored her for lifelong commitment to free speech.
- In 2017, she received the E.B. White Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters for lifetime achievement in children’s literature.
- She was named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World in 2023.
- The documentary Judy Blume Forever, which premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, won a Peabody Award.
- In 2025, she received the Women in Film Crystal Award for Advocacy, the Women’s National Book Association Award, the FIU Sanders Prize in Fiction, and the Miami Beach Exemplary Woman Award — a remarkable haul for an author still actively engaged in literary and cultural life at 87.
Personal Relationships
Blume’s romantic life has been as honestly lived as her fiction suggests she would live it — marked by early choices, a painful mistake, and ultimately a lasting partnership.
She married John M. Blume in 1959 and together they had two children: Randy Lee and Lawrence Andrew. The marriage lasted until 1975, when the couple divorced.
She then married Thomas A. Kitchens, a physicist, on May 8, 1976 — a union she later described as a mistake. They divorced in 1978.
On June 6, 1987, she married George Cooper, a non-fiction writer and former law professor — and the partnership has endured. Together, Cooper and Blume reside in Key West, Florida, where they co-own a beloved independent bookstore.
Her children have carved out notable lives of their own. Her daughter Randy became a therapist specializing in helping writers complete their work, while her son Lawrence became a film director, producer, and writer.
A Life Beyond the Page
In her later decades, Blume has become as well-known for her advocacy as for her writing. She is one of the most outspoken opponents of book banning in America — a cause made personal by the fact that her own books have been among the most frequently challenged titles in library history. At an age when she could rest on her accomplishments, she chose instead to open a bookstore in Key West with her husband and to speak out nationally about threats to books.
The bookstore — Books & Books at The Studios of Key West — has become a community anchor and a symbol of her belief that stories, especially honest ones, must remain accessible to everyone.
Estimated Net Worth
Blume’s finances, like most authors’, are not publicly disclosed, and estimates vary widely. Online figures range from a few million dollars to over $40 million, with the disparity reflecting the complexity of calculating royalties, foreign rights, licensing deals, and adaptation income. Conservative estimates place her net worth at approximately $5 million, while others place it considerably higher. What’s beyond dispute is that her books have sold over 85 million copies worldwide and been translated into more than 32 languages — generating decades of royalty income that continues to this day, amplified by major screen adaptations.
Legacy
Judy Blume did not simply write books for children and teenagers. She expanded what those books were permitted to be. She trusted young readers with the truth at a time when the publishing industry largely did not, and in doing so she created not just a body of work but a relationship — a covenant with generations of readers who felt, for the first time, genuinely seen.
A full biography, Judy Blume: A Life by journalist Mark Oppenheimer, was published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons in 2026 — a fitting testament to the enduring cultural weight of a woman who spent her career insisting that the interior lives of young people were worth taking seriously.
At 87, Judy Blume is still showing up. Still fighting for books. Still telling the truth.