All Hail Judy Blume!

I was thinking about our upcoming Mother's Day-eve event at City Winery this week while listening to writer Judy Blume's Fresh Air interview.  At 85, Blume is having a well-deserved moment, with a new Amazon Prime documentary Judy Blume Forever, and a long-awaited feature film treatment of her iconic book, Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. 

Blume is such an important figure in the lives of so many young girls who grew up to be women and mothers—and writers. Unsurprisingly, she had a lot to say in her conversation with Terry Gross, where she shared her thoughts on (among other things) motherhood, censorship, and book banning.

Here are her thoughts on 'protecting children' in a recent interview with Variety:

"What are you protecting your children from? Protecting your children means educating them and arming them with knowledge, and reading and supporting what they want to read. No child is going to become transgender or gay or lesbian because they read a book. It's not going to happen. They may say, 'Oh, this is just like me. This is what I'm feeling and thinking about.' "

Fun Fact: Young adult fiction is a category of fiction written for readers from 12 to 18 years of age. While the genre is primarily targeted at adolescents, approximately half of YA readers are adults.