Judy Blume's next book is one for adults to look forward to

http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2014/jun/26/judy-blume-book-adults-children

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For all you fellow Judy Blume fans out there, here's some fabulous news. The author, whose stories about growing up have tapped into the psyches of children everywhere, is in the middle of writing her first novel for adults in 16 years.

Beloved for children's books including Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret, Blubber and Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, Blume is also the author of three novels for adults: Wifey, Smart Women, and her biggest bestseller Summer Sisters, which tells of the intense friendship between two young women over almost 20 years. Summer Sisters was first published in 1998; the author's editor in the US, Carole Baron at Alfred A Knopf, has now told the New York Times that Blume's next novel for adults will be published in summer 2015.

"It's pure Judy Blume, writing about family and about friendships, about love, about betrayal," said Baron. "It's quintessential Judy."

When I met Blume a couple of weeks back, she told me a bit more – that that the book was about the lives of teenagers in the 1950s, revisiting them as 50-year-olds years later.

"It's based on a series of tragedies in the town I lived in when I was growing up, and the terrible time it was for the adults and the children, although the adults never talked to the children about it," said Blume. "No one I know had an adult talk to them about it, so we invented scenarios of what this all meant. At the same time life goes on, you go to school, you meet a boy, you fall in love, all the time that this is happening."

She didn't tell me what the tragedies were, but she grew up in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and a quick google reveals a series of plane crashes around Newark airport which began in December 1951. Blume said she had to do a lot of research, "because I remembered it, but not as an adult, and so I had to dig really deep. That is the most fun I have ever had writing, and I said I'm never doing another book without research, I love it."

Whatever the subject, I can't wait to read it; I adored Summer Sisters. And going back over lots of Blume's novels before I interviewed her, I realised quite how much she'd influenced me as a kid, from Margaret's "I must, I must, I must increase my bust"– happened in our playground, I vividly recall – to Deenie's first kiss, and, of course, Forever. (Apparently it is only British readers who always ask her about Forever, weirdly – we're obsessed with Ralph!)

I'm halfway through transcribing the interview, so more on the legendary Judy soon … I leave you with Amanda Palmer's excellent take on the author, with which I thoroughly concur.