Start with Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing if the reader is under about ten, and with Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. if they are older — or if you are an adult reading Blume for the first time. Those are two different books for two different audiences, and her catalogue splits along that line: comic family stories for younger readers, and realist novels about puberty, illness, grief and sex for readers roughly ten and up.
Publication order does not matter. The Fudge books are the only real sequence she wrote, and this guide is organised by which reader is in front of you instead. This page is written for the adult choosing the book.
The Fudge books, in order
Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing is narrated by nine-year-old Peter Hatcher, whose toddler brother Fudge eats his turtle. Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great is a side book narrated by Sheila Tubman, Peter's neighbour, and can be read at any point. Superfudge adds a new baby and a move out of Manhattan; Fudge-a-mania takes the family on holiday. A fifth, Double Fudge, is not in this list. Freckle Juice belongs with these by reading level but is not connected to them: it is a very short early-reader story about a boy who buys a recipe to give himself freckles, and it is the easiest thing she wrote.
Starring Sally J. Freedman
Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself sits between the two groups. Set in 1947 among Jewish families wintering in Miami Beach, it follows a girl who invents elaborate stories, including one in which Hitler survived and is living down the road. Blume has described it as her most autobiographical novel. It reads younger than the books below and is more interesting than its reputation.
The novels about bodies and families
Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. is the famous one: a sixth-grader waiting for her period and negotiating between a Jewish father and a Christian mother while refusing to pick a religion. Then Again, Maybe I Won't is its deliberate counterpart for boys — Tony Miglione's new money, his erections, his wet dreams and the telescope he uses to watch a neighbour undress. Blubber is fifth-grade bullying narrated by one of the bullies, with no adult intervention and no tidy remorse; it is the most uncomfortable of the children's books and was written that way. Deenie follows a girl fitted with a back brace for scoliosis and includes a passage in which she masturbates to fall asleep. Tiger Eyes is about a fifteen-year-old whose father is shot dead in a hold-up, and is the most controlled novel she wrote. Forever was written for older teenagers: a first sexual relationship, described directly, including contraception and a clinic visit. It is not a middle-grade book and was never meant as one. Summer sisters is an adult novel about a long, unequal friendship between two women, and belongs on an adult's shelf.
The bans, as fact
Blume is among the most frequently challenged authors in the United States, and the American Library Association has repeatedly listed her titles and her name near the top of its challenged-books tallies since the 1980s. The specific complaints are consistent: sexual content and contraception in Forever, the masturbation passage in Deenie, sexual material in Then Again, Maybe I Won't, menstruation and religion in Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret., and language and unpunished cruelty in Blubber. Removals from school libraries and classroom collections have continued into the present decade. Two things are worth keeping separate. The content is genuinely in the books — this is not a dispute about whether the passages exist. And it is there because Blume wrote about what children were experiencing and being told not to mention, which is also why the books have lasted. Decide for the reader you actually know.
Editions differ, and one of them was rewritten
Blume revised Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. in 2014. The original 1970 text has the girls using belted sanitary napkins, a product that no longer exists; current printings use adhesive pads. Nothing else about the book changed, but a copy bought new does not match the copy an adult remembers, and if you want the original wording you need an older printing. Several other titles have also been reissued with updated covers and minor corrections. More reading for young readers lives on Discover.
Follow the full ordered path here: Judy Blume books in order: where to start.
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