Let them eat cake...

This little story always sticks in my mind. It concerns a friend of mine and I shall call her Jane. Jane was completely and utterly obsessed with her mother’s copy of ‘The Secret Garden’. In the unlikely event that you haven’t heard of this book, here it is. Just the world’s best selling book of female sexual fantasies.

My friend would sneak upstairs when her mother wasn’t looking, take the book down from the shelf and revel in a world of sexual licentiousness that she didn’t fully understand, but that she knew she had to know about.

One day she was reading the book upstairs whilst her mother and a friend sunned themselves in the garden.

‘Where is Jane?’ She heard the friend asking her mother.

‘Oh’, she answered, ‘she’s probably upstairs reading that book again.’

My point, asides from acute embarrassment on behalf of my friend? Teenagers will do anything to get their mitts on the information they need. If you don’t provide it, they will just go and find it anyway. Nancy Friday wasn’t the only woman providing it. Men, you may as well switch off at this point because you won’t know what I am talking about. Women: Judy Blume.

In a thirty-year career that involved writing fiction for young people, Judy Blume has sold over 75 million books. Can I just let that figure linger a little longer? (A bit like the scene from Steve Martin’s ‘The Jerk’ when he writes the cheque and realises that there are several more noughts on the figure than he first thought?)

Seventy-five m-i-l-l-i-o-n books.

People all over the world read ‘Forever’. A story about two young people embarking on their first sexual relationship. It was naughty and it was nice - but not nice enough. To tell a tale of love that involved sex between two young people and no drastic consequences was a little too much for Middle America. To this day, she is one of American’s most banned authors.

Love her or loathe her, she has performed a public service. She still receives hundreds of letters and emails every day. This woman and others like her have helped to make the world an easier place to be for young people. Which is a long way of telling you that I found this little gem in last week’s ‘Stella’. Let the lady herself tell you her own story. It’s worth a read.

Comments

[PAUL]

back on the net, come and see me and jack soon, love paul,,,

[DJ Kirkby]

Judy Blume...an icon from my teen years! I think I read every book she wrote both those aimed at teens and adults.