and he said, "you are judy blume. "you stand for honesty and truth. how could you even consider changing it?" and so i didn't, and so we lost all the book club sales. and it was mentioned in reviews, in school journals so that teachers would know if they ordered this book there was a word in it. it just--it boggles the mind-- very expensive word. that this is where we are. this is a recent-- a more recently published book than some of the others. you know, another trend we hear of today that you didn't see early in your career is a concern, i think, about the occult, witches, the supernatural, and the backlash against harry potter. what do you make of that? any--any thoughts on that? well, i think it's-- there was a very interesting article, actually, in the horn book-- in the may/june edition of this year of horn book, in which a conservative christian tried to explain to all of us why this was a problem. and it was a very good article, because it kind of helped me to at least step back long enough, take a deep breath and understand that for some peo

they include judy blume, one of this country's most popular and most frequently censored authors, carolivially-acclaimed book, nappy hair, was challenged in a brooklyn school, and cammie mannino, a bookseller who took a stand against censorship. welcome to all of you. i have to begin with judy. you know, there are these lists every year about the most banned books. each and every year, you're in the top five. you're sort of the beatles of banned books. how did you obtain this status, and what are you doing wrong? uh-oh, you know, you're asking the wrong person. it's never the-- the person who wrote the books is always surprised. you have to ask the people who ban the books. i can go back to 1980, and i can say to you-- of course, i remember, you know, "what was it?" it was a shock to me. it was anything to do with sexuality, which, for my characters, was puberty; any language that people found offensive, sometimes lack of moral tone, whatever that is. i think it has to do with hitting the kids-- i didn't hit them over the head with right and wrong. gosh, what else? were you writing a differ