Banned Books Week Guest Author Post by Myra McEntire

Are You There, Judy? It's Me, Myra

When I was in elementary and middle school, I was the nerdiest kid alive, like, ever.

Seriously.

When you’re young, you don’t know how to own your inner nerd, you just feel every single second of being different. You pray one day you’ll get rid of the glasses and the too skinny legs and the propensity to fall over (especially when seventh graders tripped you).

I had two saving graces back then. Dancing was one. I didn’t always follow the steps (okay, I never followed the steps, sorry Ms. Humphries). I just followed my imagination and went where the music took me. The smells of the studio - rosin for the toe shoes, the leather of the ballet slippers, Chapstick – soothed me in a way nothing else could.

Except for the smell of books.

Whether they were from the tiny Colonial Heights Library or from B.Dalton bookstore, or from the shelves at my home or my grandmother’s, books were always the cure for everything. They gave me a chance to live in someone else’s world, escape my own. I could solve mysteries like Trixie Belden (and I still own all the originals), paint a cat like Ramona, or write secrets in my notebook like Harriet the Spy. I could live in a New York City apartment building like Peter Hatcher or Shelia the Great. I could ride horses like Black Beauty or The Black Stallion.

I could learn about very mature things, such as different religions and menstruation, like Margaret.

My parents had no issues with me reading these books. I reckon my teachers didn’t either. The problems came when I tried to tell my second grade class about them.

I can still see the look on Mrs. Cheeseburger’s* face when I ended my oral book report on ARE YOU THERE GOD, IT’S ME, MARGARET with, “And then she got her period.”

My mom had to meet me in the principal's office.

That book started a love affair with Judy Blume’s works, a love affair that had more influence on the way I think as an adult than I can properly assess. I went to a tiny rural school. Almost everyone was Protestant – we thought even Catholics were a little bit touched. I certainly never met anyone who was Jewish, or interacted with anyone of another race. In this case, it wasn’t because of prejudice. It was because of exposure.

So when Margaret questioned religion, so did I. When an African-American family moved into IGGIE’S HOUSE, I didn’t doubt Winnie’s choice to stand up for them when certain neighbors got ugly. I felt empathy for Jill when people called her BLUBBER, because even though I was on the opposite end of the weight spectrum, I caught hell for looking different, too.

Even today, when my youngest child tries to take flight from the top of the refrigerator or takes off his pants in the grocery store, I repeat this mantra: Farley Drexel Hatcher, Farley Drexel Hatcher, Farley Drexel Hatcher …

Judy Blume’s books took me places I never would have gone, physically and emotionally, if I had been left to my own devices. They helped me grow up. They made me socially aware.

Imagine if her books hadn’t been allowed on the shelves?

Who would that nerdy girl be today?

Not the same at all. So I raise a glass to Judy Blume and all the other authors out there who aren’t afraid to tell the stories that should be told.

I owe you who I am, and ultimately, I owe you what I do for a living.

And I’m grateful.

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Myra McEntire is the author of the upcoming HOURGLASS (Egmont USA, May 24, 2011). She lives with her husband and two children in Nashville, where she is most likely at this very moment trying to convince her youngest to wear pants.

You can find out more about Myra by visiting her blog: http://writingfinally.blogspot.com

*names have been changed to protect the guilty