Forever

 

Over the course of my life, I have read many Judy Blume novels. I was a little too old for her kids' chapter books, but I read many of those as a fifth grade teacher or with my own kids. I read Are You There God, It's Me, Margaret along with one of my fifth graders. What a marvelous  book. (I had a question about the novel and wrote to Judy Blume. She was on a book tour so I heard back from her secretary with a really great email in return. Why didn't I think to print it out and save it?)

But I'd never read Forever. It popped up on a few banned books lists lately. (I still can't believe we are once again dealing with the potential of widespread banning of books. But more on that in another post.) I was able to take it out of the library and read it in a few sittings over the course of 24 hours.

Why is Forever considered objectionable? It's a fairly explicit story of the first sexual experience of a high school senior and her boyfriend who have decided they are in love and that love is forever. 

This novel was first published in 1975 when I would have been a freshman in college. Again, just a little too old to read this kind of story. It might have made sense to me about 3 or 4 years earlier. And perhaps it would have been useful to me 3 or 4 years earlier. Not to encourage me to have sex - one of the supposed reasons this novel is on many banned book lists - but to encourage me to have sex responsibly. Perhaps in the 1970s and 1980s, this might have been considered titillating. I'm not sure. It might have hit close to home to my teenage brain. But titillating? I don't think so.

This novel isn't for everyone. The characters are pretty flat. The dialogue between the teens is extremely stilted. But the storyline is real. Teenage girls being in love after five minutes of casually knowing a guy. Teenage boys  wanting to have sex. Teenage girls not sure if they want to have sex. Teenagers proclaiming they are going to love each other forever. 

Forever is descriptive. But it is not pornographic. It's not a bodice ripper. It's not fantasy. It presents teenage sex in a realistic way. It would definitely be a novel for a youngish girl to read as she's first becoming aware of sex, before she's ready. Just so she has some idea. 

For me, the real richness of the novel are the conversations that Katherine has with her mother and with her grandmother about the possibility of a sexual relationship with her boyfriend, Michael. Those were conversations I never had with my mother - or with anyone. But they were also realistic. In fact, this would be the perfect novel to give to your teenager when the time comes for that conversation, although beats the heck out of me what age that would be now.

Just because a parent doesn't want their child to read a particular book doesn't mean that ONE parent gets to make that decision for ALL families. The idiocy of book banning.