Everything I Needed to Know About Being a Girl I Learned from Judy Blume

Reading Group GuideEverything I Needed to Know About Being a Girl I Learned from Judy BlumeEdited by Jennifer O'ConnellSurvey Says...Like the young girls and grown women characters in Judy Blume's novels, real women love gossiping about their lives. So here's the skinny on some of your favorite writers from this collection, in their own words!1. What was your first kiss like?2. Name three of your oddest jobs.3. What is your favorite color and why?4. How many BFFs have you had?5. What does your kinkiest pair of underwear look like?6. Name your three biggest fears.7. Briefly describe a happy memory involving the opposite sex.8. What was your favorite prank call (that you made or that someone made to you)?9. Was your teen bedroom a disaster area or clean and pristine? What's your room like now?10. Have you ever gone skinny dipping?11. How has your relationship with your mother changed from girlhood, to adolescence, to adulthood?12. Which sibling got the most attention in your house?13. Briefly describe the best date you've ever had.14. Briefly describe the worst date you've ever had.15. Name your three favorite movies.16. When you first noticed boys, how long did you think it would be before you got married?17. What's your funniest bra/breast story?18. What is the most humiliating thing that happened to you as a child?19. Were you the bully, or did you get picked on as a child?20. Who's more neurotic about her children -- you, or your mother?21. Did you ever get caught masturbating?22. Did you believe in God when you were a teenager? Why or why not?23. What are your three favorite things to do with your girlfriends?24. Where is the most unusual place you've had sex?Discussion PointsUse the following opportunities to discuss some of Judy Blume's most popular themes with the members of your Book Club.1. In essays like "Then. Now. Forever." by Megan McCafferty, "The M Word" by Lara Zeises, and "Do Adults Really Do That?" by Laura Caldwell, the authors remember learning about and discussing sex for the first time. Sometimes it's traumatic, sometimes it's funny, but however it happens, it's always memorable. Share the story of how your parents first brought up the "birds & bees," or the time that your class was separated into groups of boys and girls to watch informational films on this biological imperative.2. Many of the essays in this book, including "Forever...Again" by Stacey Ballis, cite the deep impact that Judy Blume's most banned and celebrated book,Forever,had on their early ideas about love and sex. What was your first experience with love like? Why do you think that attitudes about teen sex have or haven't changed sinceForeverwas first published?3. Young girls universally struggle through puberty, which often leaves in its wake identity crises and a scramble to label and be labeled as girls seek to order their chaotic, changing worlds. "Boys Like Shiny Things" by Laura Ruby, "Cry, Linda, Cry" by Meg Cabot, and "Freaks, Geeks, and Adolescent Revenge Fantasies" by Shanna Swendson describe the authors' own stories of battered and, ultimately, triumphant self-esteem. What labels were you given as a child? How did these affect your sense of identity and the way you related to others? What, if anything, did you do to shed or strengthen these identities?4. Sometimes it seems like the female half of the species are burdened with a rebellious and uncooperative body from the moment we become self-aware until...well, it never ends! After reading "The One That Got Away" by Stephanie Lessing, "I Am" by Erica Orloff, "Vitamin K, Judy Blume, and the Great Big Bruise" by Julie Kenner, "The Importance of ABCs" by Kayla Perrin, and "Are You There, Margaret?" by Alison Pace, what body image issues from your past came back to haunt you? What physical attributes do you still battle for control?5. WomO'Connell, Jennifer is the author of 'Everything I Needed to Know About Being a Girl I Learned from Judy Blume ', published 2007 under ISBN 9781416531043 and ISBN 1416531041.