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In this picture, Judy Blume is revisiting her old stomping grounds in Miami, Florida. This is the exact same area where Blume based her book Starring Sally J. Freedman. Blume had to move to Florida when she was a kid for her brothers health reasons, very much like the character in her book. Blume stated she attributes living in Florida for 2 years to really helping her overcome being shy. This period also gave her time to discover the love she had for making up stories.

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This is a photo of Judy Blume standing next to her husband and her grandson. I chose this photo because it is from an article on Grandparents.com, in which Blume talks about how much of an inspiration her grandson is to all of her writing. One of her favorite stories to tell is that if it were not for her grandson, she probably would not have written the newest Fudge book. Blume says that if she did not have a family to write about and write for, she does not think she would have kept writing so long.

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This photo is a quote from Judy Blume that states, "how we handle our fears will determine where we go with the rest of our lives." I picked this image because it relates to Blume's book Tiger Eyes, but also because I think this is great advice coming from an author for children. It seems that a lot of the time growing up, kids are taught to be afraid of things that are new or different to them because it is safer that way; they know they will not get hurt if they stick to what they know. But Judy Blume challenged that idea and told children to take on new challenges and to address their fears because it could lead to something cool that they might really enjoy.

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This is a picture of Judy Blume and her son, Lawrence, standing with the producer of their film adaption of Blume's Tiger Eyes. This movie was directed by Lawrence Blume and even had a cameo by Judy herself. In the article, it talked about how Blume was at a book signing and just how personable and friendly she was with all of her fans. They also noted the amount of gratitude her fans wanted to give Blume in return for all the books she has come up with over the years.

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Judy Blume was once called one of the most challenged authors of the 21st century. This is because a lot of her novels talk about subjects that are considered to be too mature for young adults. When asked why she writes about the topics she does, Blume explains that growing up she had a lot of questions about a lot of different things. It really frustrated her when she would get the run around from adults who felt uncomfortable talking to her about those topics. So she decided that she was going to write books that described answers to those questions in a way that children could understand. Some of these topics include puberty, death, love, sex, and even alcoholism.

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Blume, J. (1970) "Are You There God? Its Me Margaret." New York, New York: Yearling.

This book starts out with a girl named Margaret Simon who is moving from New York City to New Jersey. Margaret's parents have been sure not to raise her on any sort of religion until she gets old enough to decide for herself. The reader learns throughout the novel that Margaret's mother is Christian and her father is Jewish. This caused a lot of problems with Margaret's grandparents on her mothers side. They could not forgive the fact that her mother married someone outside of their religion. So they decided they would raise their daughter without religion. Another reason that the family decided to move away from New Jersey is to get away from Margaret's grandmother on her fathers side. They wanted to get away from her because she was trying super hard to push Margaret into being Jewish. Much to the families surprise, moving to New Jersey did not get Margaret away from religion; it actually did the exact opposite. Every kid that Margaret would run into asked her what church she went to or if she was a part of the YMCA. This caused a lot of confusion in Margaret's life on top of the other stressors she had to deal with just being a middle schooler. One of the major topics that Blume addresses in the book is puberty. As soon as Margaret goes to her new school, the girls start talking about periods and puberty, which causes a lot of stress with Margaret because she is not hitting puberty as quickly as she would like. In the end of the book, Margaret does not change much and actually goes back to her old relationship she was developing with God and understanding herself. I think this is an important lesson because no matter what influences happen in your life, weather it be friends or family, you need to trust your gut and own instinct.

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Blume, J. (1980) "Superfudge." New York, New York: E.P. Dutton.

Superfudge is a story told from the perspective of the older brother in a family of 3 children. Peter is the oldest brother and is in the end of 5th grade when the book begins. Peter is also given big news that they are going to be getting another baby in the family. This upsets Peter to the point of yelling about how he does not want another Fudge around the house. Right after this happens is when you meet Peter's little brother Fudge. Fudge is not even in kindergarten yet but can speak and read and spell like no other kindergartner. The book then quickly moves on to after the baby arrives and all the adventures that happen in a house that is to small for all of them.  Some of the things that happen include Fudge taking the baby and hiding her so he can play hide and seek, as well as Fudge trying to sell the baby to every person who would walk by or come over. When these did not work, Fudge switched to trying to pay people to take his little sister. Near the end of the book, the family announces that they are going to be moving to Princeton for 2 years. This really makes Peter mad and want to runaway, this is because he does not want to lose all of his friends and then have to try and remake all of those again in a school where he knows nobody. On top of this, Peter learns that he is going to have to start going to the same school as his little brother, which meant taking him to school every morning.  This book has a very silly ending; in the final chapter they spend most of their time looking for Fudge and his best friend who decided to go on a bike ride without telling anyone. After they find them, the whole family gets into an argument and finally realizes that no one really liked it at Princeton and wanted to go back to New York. The fate was sealed when the babies first word was "Nu York" which made everyone believe that she was trying to say New York.

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Blume, J. (1981) "Tiger Eyes." Scarsdale, New York: Bradbury Press.

Tiger Eyes is a book that deals with death and how to overcome it. Davey is a high-schooler who lives in Atlantic City with her family. She is your average high-schooler who has a scientist best friend and a super cute boyfriend. Everything seems to be going great for Davey until one night her father is killed while he is working at the 7 Eleven. This shakes up the families whole world, and causes them to be afraid. To help deal with this fear, they decide to move in with their aunt and uncle, in what is nicknamed "bomb city". It is in bomb city that Davey and the rest of her family finally figure out how to come to terms with her fathers death. Davey's mom really took the whole thing the hardest and needed to figure out how to be a person again without the help of Davey's father. Davey also has to deal with going to a new school and meeting new friends all while she is trying to cope with the emotions she is feeling. While living in "bomb city", Davey realizes that she can not live her whole life being afraid of everything, because she does not want to end up like her aunt and uncle who do not do anything because they are afraid.

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The age range that I would put Judy Blumes' books at would be 10-15.
I picked this age group because a lot of what Judy Blume deals with in her book is stuff that you would go through in middle school. One example of this is from the book Are you there God? It's Me Marget, in this book our main character not only has to deal with moving to a new school where she will not know anyone. She also has to deal with going through puberty and understanding what that means. This is really relatable to kids in middle school because it is a natural thing that we all go through around that time and the comedic way Blume can address that I feel would help ease the fears of a lot of middle-schoolers. Another thing that shows up in Blume's books is the idea of trying things that you fear and figuring out the unknown. I believe that middle school is a great age for children to be reading these ideas because everything to them at that age is new and scary and the way that Blume makes light of these things shows readers that they are not a weird thing and that everyone is going through them and you are not alone.

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Blume, J. (1974) "Blubber." Scarsdale, New York: Bradbury Press.

Blubber is a book about bullying and finding out who your true friends are. The story begins by introducing a middle schooler named Jill who is trying to focus on her classmates reports. The final report for the day is done by a girl named Linda. Linda is doing her report on whales when one of the popular girls in class, Wendy, begins to make fun of her and compare her to a whale because of her weight. As the story continues, the bullying gets worse and Jill gets caught up and even participates. Some of the things that the kids make Linda do is call herself a whale and play keep away with almost all of her items. While this is going on, Jill is also trying to figure out where she fits in at school. Part of her feels really bad about the bullying and does not want to participate but the other half of her wants the cool girls to like her and she does not want to get bullied herself. To prove that she is cool and worthy of being friends with Wendy, Jill decides that she is going to prank one of the old mean men who live on their block. The guy ends up figuring out who it was that pranked them and Jill gets in trouble. It is at this point that Jill starts to question what type of person she wants to be, when she does this she becomes the victim of bullying but learns to come to terms with it and just "laugh it off." In the end, this method works and the bully gets exposed for who she really is and Jill stays true to herself and her friends.

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I think that this book is a 70/30 split. I think that students would really enjoys these books and that they are easy enough to understand that 70% of the reading would be done at home.  Micki Caskey and Vincent Anfara in their article, "Developmental Characteristics of Young Adolescents," talk about the intellectual development of young adolescents. In this section, they talk about how young adolescents "are eager to learn about topics they find interesting and useful—ones that are personally relevant. They also favor active over passive learning experiences and prefer interactions with peers during educational activities." (Caskey & Anfara, 2014) Due to the way that Blume writes, I think that students will be very interested in the topics and be able to relate to them.

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https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/books/2017/04/06/judy-blume-receive-lifetime-achievement-award/100114882/

In May 2017, Judy Blume was honored with the E.B White award. This is a 10,000 dollar award that is given to authors of young adult literature. Blume was one of nineteen authors to be awarded with a lifetime achievement.

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http://www.nationalbook.org/amerletters.html#.WoXZ-6jwbtQ

In 2004, Judy Blume won "The National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters." This is given out every fall around the same time as the National Book Awards. The winner of this award receives $10,000 for their work in "enriching our literary heritage over a life of service, or a corpus of work."

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Canfield_Fisher_Children%27s_Book_Award#Winners

In 1983, Judy Blume won the Dorthy Canfield Fisher Children's Book award. She won this award for her novel Tiger Eyes. This award is voted on by children in Vermont school districts. It has been around since 1957 and was named after famous author Dorthy Fisher. Besides Blume, many well known works such as, Summer of Fear by Lois Duncan in 1978 and Gary Paulson in 1989, for his book Hatchet.