Why a father of five is telling Judy Blume's revealing life story

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On the ShelfJudy Blume: A Life By Mark Oppenheimer G.P.Putnam’s Sons, 480 pages, $35If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores.One of the biggest takeaways from the biography “Judy Blume: A Life” may not be in the story itself but in its author.

Because of her frank talk about puberty and sexual awakenings, Blume’s work is usually associated with young female readers.Her biographer, Mark Oppenheimer, is a middle-aged father of five.He says he received minimal pushback on the idea that a man should be allowed to write Blume’s definitive life story.

If the whole point of her books is that there should be no shame in body awareness, what service does it do to say only a woman has the authority to write her story? Plus, although her books aren’t selling as well as they used to — who’s are? — Oppenheimer’s biography points out that there are still plenty of parents who will throw a copy of her seminal “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.” at their kids rather than have the menstruation talk or risk any misinformation that may be online.“No good writer should be ghettoized,” Oppenheimer says during a recent Zoom call with The Times.“If you’re a good writer, you shouldn’t be marketed just to girls or just to boys or just to white people or just to straight people.

Good art should be for everyone.” Movies Fifty-three years after the publication of Blume’s ‘Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret,’ the fight to destigmatize menstruation continues in film and TV.It is intrinsic and impossible not to parlay Blume’s stories of sibling rivalries, first loves, friends and frenemies, and (most famously) puberty with what was going on in your life when you read them.Books like “Deenie” and “Superfudge” and “Margaret” are also remarkably malleable en...