One more Judy Blume, then it's off to other YA authors for a bit

Then Again, Maybe I Won't






This is a book that's really hard to pin down.  Tony is nearly fourteen and coping with all the hormones and emotions and anger that is teenager.   Suddenly his dad sells an invention, gets a new job and moves the family to the rich neighborhood on Long Island.  It's 1971--remember when we didn't have the Internet to teach kids about sex?   (I sometimes wish we didn't have it now).   If your parents don't do it and your peers don't do it, where's a kid to turn?

So all those worries--growing up, strange family, new neighborhood--all had to go somewhere and Tony stuffed them all inside, ending up with a terrible case of Charlie Brown Stomach.  Or so we think--I'm not giving away the end.

I'm kind of mad at Judy Blume for not coming to a satisfactory resolution regarding his grandmother.  It makes me want to write a sequel.  I can't, of course, since she's still alive and her characters are her own, but darn it!  If she refuses to do it, why shouldn't I?

Maybe I will, when I get started writing again.  Then again, maybe I won't.