Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing and Superfudge were my favorite Judy Blume books as a kid. I heard this public radio story with Judy Blume today and I love it. She walks the reporter through her childhood neighborhood as they discuss the book Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself.

For two school years, shortly after World War II, Judy Blume lived in Miami Beach. She wrote Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself about that time. Here, she joins WLRN's Alicia Zuckerman, who lives in the same neighborhood today, to revisit that time and place.

“I was making up stories and someone came to my mother and said, ‘She is too old to be playing with paper dolls.’ But I wasn’t playing with paper dolls like a little kid; I was playing with paper dolls with all these really exciting melodramas going on inside my head. That’s what made me a writer.”

— Judy Blume

A map of Judy Blume's old neighborhood

I haven't read Blume's books for adults, but maybe I should However, hearing her talk about her writing makes me want to go back and read Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing and Superfudge.