Then Again
Us kids all needed SOMEBODY to give us the lowdown on periods and boners back in the '80s, and Judy Blume tended to be a bit more reliable than that weird kid on the motorcoach. This ane's kinda the boy version of "Are Y'all At that place God...", demystifying for pre-adolescent readers that unfamiliar new stain in their undy-dundypants. Can you imagine being Judy Blume's child? You'd accept been the most well-informed kid on the playground. I bet parents never allow their kids go to sleepovers at the Blumes, though.
I think I was virtually 10 years old when I read this book (i of a Judy Blume box fix); I suspect my mother has yet to recover from my ensuing questions: "Mommy, the book I'm reading has a boy in it who keeps maxim that 'information technology went up'. Why would he be embarrassed if his ZIPPER went upwardly? Was it written incorrect?" Afterward my mother's laudable (and surprisingly unflappable)explanation, I had some serious thinkin' to do...I mean, I grew upward without brothers, and then the nitty-gritty of the workings of male person beefcake was an absolute mystery to me, at least up to that point. I wonder but how many of usa (at least those of united states of america who came-of-age in the 70s and early-80s) learned life'due south...business concern...from Judy Blume? To call back, she went from Tales of a Fourth Class Nothing and Super-Fudge to Deenie and Forever! Subversive!
Withal another highly enjoyable Judy Blume book! In this one, Tony'southward family unit become wealthy and move to a new neighborhood. There'due south some expert aspects to this of course, but Tony's mother is drastic to impress the neighbors, to earn their approving and acceptance. This happens quite frequently, and, on a smaller scale, I have observed many people falling into this way of thinking/living, so it was piece of cake to capeesh Tony's honest accept on the situation. This is quite a frank book, exploring puberty, feet, appearances being deceptive etc. Unfortunately this is the last of the Judy Blume books that I had ready aside -- I hope to discover more presently as they take been a lot of fun!
Then Again, Maybe I Won't is actually i of the few Judy Blume novels from the 1970s that I did not read as a teenager (in the early on 1980s). Yes, I did in fact recall signing And then Again, Maybe I Won't out of our school library, but so returned information technology generally unread considering at that time of my life (from about 1980 to 1984) I was just not all that interested in reading a novel for pleasure (and in fact whatsoever novel) that did not have a teenaged girl simply instead a teenaged boy as a chief protagonist (as I was personally at that time finding the boys in my class annoyingly immature and irksome and could therefore also not imagine finding And then Again, Mayhap I Won't either all that relatable or readable, since Tony Miglione, the chief protagonist, indeed is a thirteen year old teenaged boy). In fact, I never did end up reading Now while I certainly have despised on an emotional and personal level how Tony'south mother is portrayed past Judy Blue as beingness rather a typical and increasingly arrogant urban social climber in many ways, considering that in reality at that place sadly are and always have been many individuals exhibiting these types of character traits, Carmella Miglione'southward alter and devolution in And indeed, the only part of
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Baronial 20, 2021One of my favorite Judy Blume novels, and that'south saying a lot.
The old-smelling used 1973 paperback re-create I read has this catchphrase written across the top of the front cover: When I was growing up, Judy Blume was regarded as a very edgy author for middle-school-level readers. Schools and libraries banned some of her books, or kept them behind the checkout desk. Amid those books, Then Again, Mayhap I Won't was known to be the most dangerous. My parents wouldn't have wanted me reading it when I was a kid, and so I didn't. Merely it wasn't but considering I knew my parents wouldn't corroborate—it was also the general tone of Blume's books. I think a lot of youth-focused books in that era were based in the real globe and featured protagonists in urban settings (peculiarly New York or New Jersey); in families that were in some manner dysfunctional; indelible bug at schoolhouse and navigating adolescence; dealing with course and race issues. I was growing up in a rural, agricultural small town in the Midwest, role of a loving family unit, and stories like these seemed to have nil to do with me. Somehow my literary imagination didn't extend to putting myself into these settings. I didn't intendance for the slightly gritty, urban realism. Perhaps that's i reason I tended to cull fantasy stories for my childhood reading. Narnia, Prydain, and Eye-Globe were a lot more appealing to me than a present-day lower-center-class neighborhood in New Jersey. And then Again follows this genre of youth fiction from that era. Tony, the protagonist, and his family (not a terribly dysfunctional or cleaved family, though with plenty of room for improvement) movement from their working class neighborhood in Bailiwick of jersey City to an upper-course area of Long Island after his dad becomes recognized as a genius and has all the money the family could possibly desire, forever. Tony befriends the boy next door, who looks perfect on the surface but is really a real wiggle with the beginnings of some serious problems. Tony has his own problems, figuring out how to deal with his family unit and with his own adolescent development. Reading this for the first time equally an adult, I don't particularly love information technology. The prose style is fine, but (to me) a little bland. Even though Blume tackles some tough bug in a helpful, open mode, I'm very uncomfortable with the aforementioned things that led to the book's risky reputation years ago. Tony floats through life, wrestling internally with questions about himself and others around him, merely he gets nearly no true wisdom or guidance. He's on his own. Considering no one can assist him, there'due south no ane to tell him that some of his actions are completely wrong. He attends a church youth group, but it doesn't seem to accept anything to practise with spiritual guidance. The local pastor feels distant and uninvolved, fifty-fifty though he can surely tell that Tony and his family unit need help. Tony's dad seems like a good man, but he doesn't know how to be meaningfully involved in his son's life; and his female parent is distracted past their new wealth. The i person who might be able to help Tony is his grandmother—but she tin't speak, because she lost her larynx to cancer. I constitute it really agonizing to have a character in forced silence. Information technology'due south interesting picking upward a book whose title I heard so often in my childhood. For me, this is a case where the volume would never have passed my standards for youth literature, and the years and cultural changes between its original publication and now accept not rendered information technology more than endearing or helpful. The funny, touching story of a boy with problems.
Wow. Who wouldn't want to read that?
Then over again, perhaps I shouldn't reread all the Judy Blume books from my youth.
I read this for a real-world book club; it took about 2 hours to breeze through. Strangely, it was published in 1971 when I would have been twelve years former, just similar the boy in the story, but I never heard of it then and was only vaguely enlightened of the writer'southward name until now. Information technology struck me as a strange book. The prose was pretty juvenile, with brusk and uncomplicated sentences. Is it intended for 'tweens? I don't know, information technology seems a squeamish "I guess I'm not a freak after all" bulletin might be good well-nigh so, just I didn't actually take any problems adjusting to early on adolescence (now, mid- and late-teens with rebellion, generalized maladjustment and hair-trigger emotions: that was trouble). Only at about twelve I think I was reading stuff similar Christopher Johns' kid's scifi Tripod Trilogy (expected to be a movie in 2012!) and stuff like Old Yeller and My Side of the Mountain. Non introspective stuff. My rating is based on the purely hypothetical question of whether I would hand this to a kid. Yeah, I would -- male child or girl, but probably a flake younger than the ages of those in the book. By the time kids are going through those changes, the privacy instinct is going to kick in pretty hard and they'll have a tough time asking questions nigh what they've read. I figure go this to them a bit before that hits and talk to them almost the freaky stuff afterwards.
This was one of the few Judy Blume books I didn't read when I was younger. I guess it always seemed like a boy's book to me merely a friend was going on and on near reading it when she was younger and I felt like I was missing out and then I got if from the library. Wasn't at that place an After School Special near the volume too? I know I'm dating myself only I think Leif Garret was in it and he just always seemed like bad news-peradventure that was why I stayed away from the book back then too. The volume is kind of similar "Are You There God? It's me Margaret" for boys. Tony, the main grapheme, is going through puberty and starts spying on the girl next door. He even asks for binoculars for Christmas and so he tin watch her. It's weird to read the book and see how it's no big deal that's he watching the daughter next door undress. He fifty-fifty tells the psychologist he's seeing for anxiety about it and he doesn't even react! Today the child would be in a treatment plan for juvenille sex offenders but in the book it's no big deal. It was fun to go back and read a book similar this, even if information technology'southward kind of warped! It makes me desire to read some of my favorite Judy Blume books!
I know I go along gushing most Judy Blume but once more she proves to be one of the all-time young adult novelists ever. I loved that this story--told from the POV of the male lead Tony--is just a stiff a reflection of the juinior high years every bit "Are At that place God---It's Me Margaret." The story is a unproblematic one--a poor Italian kid'due south family becomes successful and moves from Jersey City to a toney neighborhood and exactly how this changes the entire mores of the each person. Information technology'southward near being the new kid in school, figuring out puberty and esuxal urges, about class struggle and even about "the whiting" one's racial background. I really did intendance for Tony and understand his concerns and confusions every bit his family adapted to their new wealth and environment in ways that seemed to go against their nature. I loved the grapheme of his homesick grandmother--unable to cook since it would seem unseemly, the perky and annoying Corky who just wants Tony to like her, the high end Hoober family who cause all the concerns and joy in the story. A near perfect book and ane I would read once again.
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