Different for girls
The Guardian Weekly|April 21, 2023
Judy Blume‘s chronicles of female adolescence in the 1970s still resonate today – and her best-loved character, Margaret, is about to hit cinemas
Anna Fazackerley
Different for girls
 

‘It felt like she was writing for me.” It is a sentiment I hear over and over again, talking to women in their 40s and 50s about the American writer Judy Blume, one of the world’s bestselling authors, who started writing young adult fiction in the 1970s, when that genre was still in its infancy.

As a 12-year-old growing up in Bath, western England, my Judy moment – discovering her novel Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, which is due to be released as a film worldwide in the coming weeks – was revelatory. There I was, feeling like the only girl in school who might never grow a decent pair of boobs or start her periods. (At 46, I’m still waiting for the boobs.) Then along came Margaret. Never mind that she was living more than a decade earlier; she was feeling the same anxieties, and everything she felt was right there on the page.

“I loved her immediately because she was writing about what it was really like to be a girl, worrying about bras, periods and crushes,” says the novelist Emily Barr.

Until she “found Judy”, Barr had been existing on a diet of Malory Towers, Enid Blyton’s wholesome boarding school novels. “Those girls did get older but they basically stayed like children in this sanitised world,” she says. “ Daryl Rivers definitely didn’t ever have a period.” Then Barr found Margaret and her friends, chanting “I must, I must improve my bust” in the hope they would grow to fill their new bras, and everything changed.

Esta historia es de la edición April 21, 2023 de The Guardian Weekly.

Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.

Esta historia es de la edición April 21, 2023 de The Guardian Weekly.

Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.

MÁS HISTORIAS DE THE GUARDIAN WEEKLYVer todo
THE SAVAGE SUBURBIA OF HELEN GARNER
The Guardian Weekly

THE SAVAGE SUBURBIA OF HELEN GARNER

Over 50 years the Australian has become one of her country's most revered and beloved authors, writing as if readers were her friend, party to her most candid thoughts. Is she finally going to get worldwide recognition? By Sophie Elmhirst

time-read
10+ minutos  |
March 07, 2025
Israel's block on aid raises health fears for underfed population
The Guardian Weekly

Israel's block on aid raises health fears for underfed population

Briefing the Israeli press after Benjamin Netanyahu’s order last Sunday to turn off the aid supply to Gaza - in an effort to pressure Hamas into accepting a change in the ceasefire agreement to allow for the release of hostages without an Israeli troop withdrawal - government officials claimed the Palestinian territory had several months’ worth of food stockpiled from earlier deliveries.

time-read
3 minutos  |
March 07, 2025
Dam it! How eager beavers became the farmer's friend
The Guardian Weekly

Dam it! How eager beavers became the farmer's friend

A Cornish farmer is behind a change in the law to release wild beavers in England after witnessing the incredible benefits on his land

time-read
4 minutos  |
March 07, 2025
Call of duty
The Guardian Weekly

Call of duty

This rural English village phone box was used fewer than 10 times in the whole of 2024-but Derek Harris sees it as a lifeline and is determined to save it.

time-read
8 minutos  |
March 07, 2025
Santa Fe mourns the mysterious loss of Gene Hackman
The Guardian Weekly

Santa Fe mourns the mysterious loss of Gene Hackman

As New Mexico authorities investigate the deaths of Gene Hackman and his wife, Betsy Arakawa, their adopted home town of Santa Fe is grappling with the mystery of what happened to the couple.

time-read
3 minutos  |
March 07, 2025
Ramadan should be a time for reflection, not date-scented shopping
The Guardian Weekly

Ramadan should be a time for reflection, not date-scented shopping

Supermarkets have wheeled out the 20kg bags of rice. High-street stores have popped hijabs on mannequins. Cosmetic companies are churning out products scented with pomegranate, cardamom, saffron and “sticky date” - at Lush you can buy Salam shower gel, Noor lip butter and a massage bar that apparently smells like a turmeric latte. All this can only mean one thing in our modern, consumerist world: Ramadan is upon us.

time-read
3 minutos  |
March 07, 2025
Days of Gracie
The Guardian Weekly

Days of Gracie

After dodging toxic fans, 'nepo baby' jibes and her own projectile vomit, pop star Gracie Abrams explains why she's writing about our uncertain future

time-read
6 minutos  |
March 07, 2025
The Guardian Weekly

I'm upset by my troubled mother-in-law's extreme views

I've had a terrible run in with my mother-in-law and don't know what to do about it.

time-read
3 minutos  |
March 07, 2025
Only connect - The NigerianAmerican author returns with an ambitious, astute and moving exploration of female experience
The Guardian Weekly

Only connect - The NigerianAmerican author returns with an ambitious, astute and moving exploration of female experience

Novels had always felt to me truer than what was real,\" declares a character in Dream Count, the highly anticipated new novel by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

time-read
3 minutos  |
March 07, 2025
Labour's aid cuts are wrong morally - and economically, too
The Guardian Weekly

Labour's aid cuts are wrong morally - and economically, too

Get right down to it and there are two reasons for thinking that cuts to Britain's aid budget to pay for defence are a seriously bad idea.

time-read
3 minutos  |
March 07, 2025