Blume’s Deenie still controversial after 30 years

Here’s a story from the St. Petersburg [FL] Times in which author Judy Blume defends her novel Deenie against its latest challenge. Blume recommends that the people who want to restrict young people’s access to the book, based on a few passages in which the young adolescent title character explores her sexuality, talk to the children who might read it before making a final decision. She suggests that it’s the adults, not the youngsters, who find something inappropriate about the topics in Deenie. Blume rejects the contention of some Hernando County school board members that she wrote the book, published 30 years ago, to “push buttons.”