Blubber -- Judy Blume

I'd forgotten that Blubber is narrated by a bully:

We made Linda say, I am Blubber, the smelly whale of class 206.  We made her say it before she could use the toilet in the Girls' Room, before she could get a drink at the fountain, before she ate her lunch and before she got on the bus to go home.  It was easy to get her to do it.  I think she would have done anything we said.  There are some people who just make you want to see how far you can go.

Man, Judy Blume totally Gets It.  She knows how kids work.  Throughout the book, Jill hears adults say things like "just laugh it off" and "just ignore them".

(I'm swearing right now that I will never, ever give that advice to my children.  Also on the list:

Someday, you'll laugh about this.

That's the worst one.  But that's irrelevant because it isn't in the book.  Onward with Blubber.)

What some grown-ups don't realize is that every single kid gets that same advice, even the bullies:

After I read the note I said, "Ha ha..." remembering that my mother told me a person should always be able to laugh at herself.  I tried to laugh as hard as the rest of the kids to show what a good sport I could be.

"Goo goo..." Robby Winters said.  "See Baby Brenner laugh!" 

...

That afternoon, when I got on the bus, Wendy stuck out her foot and tripped me.  I fell flat on my face and my books flew all over the place.  I tried to laugh again but this time the laugh just wouldn't come.

Yeah.  Laughing it off doesn't work.  Especially if you aren't able to laugh it off convincingly.  Kids are young, not stupid. 

It also doesn't help if your classroom teacher is totally oblivious to the social situation.  (Unfortunately, sometimes it doesn't help if the classroom teacher IS aware of the bullying -- note to all teachers and future teachers:  Never try to force bullies to play nicely with their tormentees.  It will not go well.)

Really, I don't have a whole lot so say about this one, other than that Judy Blume is a genius.  As someone who had a particularly miserable fifth-grade experience, I feel that I'm especially qualified to say:  Blubber came out in 1974 and it still rings true today.  There were parts of the story that made me shudder.  (If that doesn't do it for you, the entire book is worth reading for the character of Ms. Rothbelle, the music teacher.  She's only around for a few pages, but she's perfect.)

It's especially impressive that Jill comes off as a pretty sympathetic -- even more so than Linda, who is not a very attractive character, even with the underdog advantage.  Part of it, I think, is that Linda isn't a fighter.  She lets people trample over her (kind of like Piggy in Lord of the Flies, actually), and the kids hate her for it.  When Jill ends up in Linda's position, she A) fights back, and B) turns the bullies against each other, which kind of defuses the gang mentality.  But there isn't really a happy ending:  she doesn't make up with Wendy & Co., and she doesn't ever become friends with Linda.  Things just...  level out. 

Blubber gets challenged on a semi-regular basis because the bullies never get punished.  (It probably also gets challenged due to the two or three instances of swearing, but whatever.)  Really.  How many bullies do you remember getting punished?  And of those that were, how many of the the bullied kids got pounded for it later?  God forbid that kids actually read something realistic.  Sheesh.

Comments

[web]

My main problem with _Blubber_ is that kids use it as a blueprint.

[Leila]

I really think that if kids are going to be rotten to each other, it's going to happen regardless of whether or not they read Blubber.

[claire]

I recently reread this too, and I was struck by how perfectly Judy Blume stays away from moralizing; Blubber is like a moderately-less-bleak version of The Chocolate War. Now, I dislike TCW intensely, but I think Blubber is genius because it's not dark simply for the sake of darkness but in the service of a realistic story that kids can recognize and deconstruct on their own.

At the same time that I want to slap Jill, I love the fact that Judy Blume never gives in to the easy, "gosh, I've seen the error of my ways and I'll never treat anyone badly again." Plus she's a subtly unreliable narrator, and has absolutely no remorse at any point in the story, even when she recognizes how much she's hurt when the tables have turned. And Linda isn't really a martyr or noble soul at all -- Jill pinpoints exactly why she's tortured, because she's a doormat -- and doesn't suddenly shine with wisdom or experience when given some power of her own at the end of the book. She acts just as badly as the other kids.

Two incidental things struck me on this rereading: one, that Linda isn't specifically targeted because she's fat. At one point early on, we learn that there are two girls in the grade that are fatter than she is, and one boy in the school who is MUCH fatter than she is. Linda's a target because she isn't smart, doesn't stand up for herself, and seems to see herself as a victim rather than an agent of change. Maybe this is where the slightly-less-bleak-thanThe-Chocolate-War part comes in? And two, no wonder it seemed frighteningly familiar: the story was explicitly set in the town where I grew up! How did I, a fat nerdy kid, somehow miss that entirely the first time I read it?

[Leila]

Linda also reminded me a bit of the main character in the movie Welcome to the Dollhouse. (Not physically, but in the not-very-smart, not-very-nice, easy-to-see-why-they're-tormented sort of way.)

As for what you said -- Yes, yes and yes some more! (Except for TCW, which I love.)

Linda is teased for being fat, but not because she's fat. There's a playground scene involving a jumprope chant that really highlights that. It's odd that the 'being able to laugh at yourself' advice is technically true, but it seems to be true more as a way of life than as a specific way of responding to harrassment.

And yes to no-remorse-Jill -- when everyone turns on her, she blames Linda, (and Wendy, of course) but, she certainly doesn't see herself as responsible. Like you said, there's no big "error of her ways" message.

The last few pages are almost exactly like the first few -- the whole thing is just brilliant.

Thanks for posting! You made me want to read it AGAIN!

[claire]

This all made me want to read it again too... thank YOU for posting! I'm usually a lurker, but this post got me all jumping out of my seat. I really don't think I've given Judy Blume enough time or credit in the last couple years; maybe next week I'll host my own private JudyBlumeFest. Whoo! Maybe, now that I'm older than thirteen, I'll even read Forever for the parts OTHER than the sex scene.

Doesn't Jill's lack of insight into the emotional situation remind you of Harriet the Spy a little bit? I think Harriet's a lot more extreme -- in fact, I'm convinced she has Asperger's, but I can't find anything anywhere to back me up except other friends who work with Aspy kids -- but Jill's skewed sense of righteousness when she eggs the neighbor's house, for example, and her inability to connect Linda's feelings to her own, definitely makes me think of Harriet.

[web]

Re: kids being mean to each other anyway. True, without doubt. But I know a lot of people who felt especially victimized by having an... "authorized" version of bullying, if that makes sense. Like Blubber gave kids adult permission to be nasty. Not Blume's intention I'm sure, but I still can't help but hate that book.

[Sarah]

Yup, I'm on board with the "kids will find their own ways to be mean, no matter what they're reading" school of thought. I also agree that now I'll have to read this book again, for about the hundredth time. I thought another book that really "got it" was Nat Hentoff's "This School is Driving Me Crazy," with boys and a slightly older and more vicious bullying situation. All great books though. I wonder if everyone who likes them was bullied at some point, or if bulliers like the book too? Or perhaps every kid is a bully and a bullied both at some point, and therefore every kid can get something out of it? I don't know.

[habab]

whats the name of the charecters in blubber

[littlem]

1) I thought IMMEDIATELY of The Chocolate War - which also has a sequel, which is also harshly, brutally brilliant.

2) I also loved "This School is Driving Me Crazy", because the bullies get their comeuppance. From a smartass who will probably grow up to be a functional human. Yessss.

3) I don't think Harriet had (has? these characters are immortal, I think) Aspbergers. I think she had ADHD and Venus in Aries. She calmed right down when she got the school paper editorship (except for what appeared in the paper, and who's to say Marion wasn't writing worse in her journal - and remember what Beth Ellen ended up doing in "Long Secret"), and her dad was in advertising, for goodness sake - if you were an Upper East Side kid like that, wouldn't you just shove your boundaries to see how far they could go? Doesn't necessarily make her Aspey. Although it could (mildly so).

4) Claire, it's called denial as an underestimated mental health device for socially acceptable behavior in your current environment. Keeps you off the antidepressants in the era of Bush II. Don't knock it.

[fifth grade hell]

I'll chime in to agree with those who claim kids use "Blubber" as a blueprint for abusing others. My fifth grade teacher read this book aloud to us, I think with the idea that we would learn some sort of lesson about what bullying did, not just to the picked-on kids, but also to the bullies. Well, apparently that lesson was too subtle for fifth-graders.

Let me tell you what they *did* learn. I was ten pounds overweight in the fifth grade. Guess what those kids called me all the way through junior high, even after I'd lost weight. Guess how often I was tripped and ganged up on--how often I had my lunch sack and books tossed into the creek that ran past our school. The only way to escape the constant abuse was to attend high school in another state, which I did. (And guess how often my parents told me to "ignore it" or "laugh it off" or "pretend you can't hear them." I now teach children that if someone attempts to bully them, the best--nay, only--way to stop it forever is a nice hard fist to the nose, school suspension be damned.)

To be frank, I will hate this book for the rest of my life.

Your mileage, of course, may vary.

[rachel]

i loved this book it made me feel like i wanted to be jill and linda for being bulied

[darvenginzks]

I've recently joined and wanted to introduce myself :)

[Elene]

Can you type in the end of Blubber? Sone pages of the book are missing, and I am really upset.

[oneda]

i love the book blubber and im 11 and when i readed it. it sad bithc,hell and i just did not like it

[JASMINA]

IDK WHAT DO YOU MEAN JUDY BLUME IS A GUNIUS SOUNDS LIKE SHES MAKING FUN OF THIS GIRL BECAUSE WHY ELSE WOULD THEY BANNED THE BOOK

[Leah]

yupp i love this book

[K Bashlor]

I read this book 30 years ago when I was in 5th grade. Unfortunately I emulated the bad behavior. I chose a poor unsuspecting little girl to make fun of. This book had an adverse effect on me. None of the adults around me ever caught on to what was happening, or where it was I had learned to treat this other little girl so badly.