Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself

One of my reading goals this year was to reread some my old favourites. I read my share of Judy Blume books way back when and Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself (along with Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret) has stayed with me. I was curious how the story would hold up over time and if I’d still be able to appreciate what I loved about it the first time.

The story is set in 1947, when Sally is ten years old. The Freedmans – Sally, younger brother Douglas, their mother and grandmother - relocate from New Jersey to Miami so that Douglas can recuperate from an illness. Sally has to negotiate a new home, a new school, new friends, a tense relationship with her mother, missing her father, and spying on their elderly neighbour whom show more Sally is convinced is really Hitler is disguise. With all of this going on, it’s no wonder I always remembered this book being much thicker than it actually is!

The thing that struck me most in rereading this story is how dark it actually is when you’re old/mature enough to realize what all of the subtext is referring to. Sally’s grandmother has relatives that were killed in Dachau, Sally often plays games of make-believe where she is a spy in Germany on a mission to capture Hitler, and in the snippets of phone conversation between Sally’s parents, an adult reader will recognize that there are more serious issues in their marriage than the kids are led to believe. I don’t think any of these things are necessarily inappropriate for younger readers, though I do think that if I was a parent, I’d want to be aware of these topics and be prepared to discuss them with my child if they came up. In all likelihood, it may not come up; I was a fairly mature reader when I was in the tween/early teen stage and I don’t remember picking up on all of this.

Another thing that struck me, and I have found this in re-watching some of my old favourite movies as well, is that I now tend to see things from the grown-up characters’ perspectives than the kids. In this case, I felt for Mr. Freedman and really wanted to give Mrs. Freedman’s head a shake. Ma Fanny (the grandmother) was great.

The story is entertaining and as it turns out, is semi-autobiographical. I can’t say I loved it as much this time around but it did bring back some fond memories. show less

I remember reading this multiple times as a kid (for some reason I was fascinated at the part where Sally is stung by the Man O' War jellyfish) but over the years I guess I forgot a lot of the details because rereading this now was a bit of a surprise...like I totally forgot Sally thought her neighbor was Hitler...
Reading this as an adult I definitely didn't enjoy it as much, especially because of the erratic, jumpy narrative that skims over major events/time in a matter of sentences, yet as a 9-year-old this was, for some reason, a staple book on my shelf. I don't think I'll ever read it again but I'm glad I revisited it one more time.

Part of my Judy Blume re-reading marathon, Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself is another book that holds up well to decades-later re-reads. I'll admit Sally isn't my favourite Blume character: she's a romantic and a hyper-imaginative child growing up in an era absolutely drowning in fodder for her "stories". But everything that surrounds her is interesting to me and I still identified with a child that was trying to figure out the world around her on her own, relying on context instead of the uncooperative adults she's surrounded by.

Judy Blume said herself that this book had more autobiographical elements to it than any of her other books. It's time frame of 1947-1948 is certainly the earliest of any of her children's books. Sally's show more father is a dentist, her mother a housewife. They live in a big house in suburban New Jersey until Sally's brother suffers a prolonged illness, nudging the family into renting an apartment in Miami Beach, FL for the winter so that he can recuperate in a warm climate.

This setup is a perfect vehicle for many themes as Sally is taken out of her very sheltered, homogenised environment for the first time: Her father stays in NJ to continue working, only visiting on holidays and she makes friends with a girl at school whose father was killed in the war, so parental separation/death is touched on, though lightly.

Sally befriends a black family on the train, only to find them gone when she wakes up; moved to a "black only" car as the train moves into the South. She and a friend are rather violently yanked away from a water fountain at the dime store and scolded by a stranger for drinking from the "black" water fountain. Sally questions these actions as much as a 10 year old realistically would; it's clear that Ms. Blume feels the inherent wrongness of racial distinctions. She keeps true to time, place, and age but it's frustrating to see the answers given to her by her parents.

Overall, Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself is an intriguing time-capsule of an era we've long left behind but still affects us, told from the point of view of a 10 year old girl. It's probably not my favourite of Blume's books, but it's definitely one I'll keep on the shelves and re-visit once in awhile. show less

This is the first time I've read this as an adult -- I reread it incessantly as a child. "Sally J. Freedman" may be the best shot Blume has at a book that will outlive her. She is perfectly convincing at expressing a child's innocent bafflement at the concept of human evil. The stories Sally invents in her effort to understand the Holocaust -- Hitler is alive and retired in Florida! -- are humorous without making light of the subject.

This novel may well become a children's classic. So why on earth does my library only have it in e-book and audible form?

this review is for the audiobook edition, narrated by judy blume.

never mind whether or not AITA... I AM! because i am about to say something i never thought i would say... i didn't love judy blume narrating her own story.

i said what i said.

this book was so important to me in my childhood. it brought so many issues and ideas to light, while feeding into my curiosities about the world beyond my front door. i must have read my copy of the novel hundreds of times. it fell apart from so many page turns. and i still consider this one of my favourite stories. when it came across my library radar as available in audiobook, i couldn't resist. and i am glad i gave it a listen. it was still very enjoyable, and while set just post-WWII, and came show more out in 1977, it manages to feel like a story as relevant today as it was when i read it so many years ago.

here's the weird thing, all the way through the listening, all i could think is 'i wish kristin chenoweth was narrating this story!' then i went down a rabbit hole of thinking about having more broadway performers getting into the audiobook game. good lord, that would be incredible.

anyway, judy is the grandmother, or mother, we wish we all could have. her stories have been touchstones in children's reading lives for 40+ years. she writes on weighty subjects, and treats kids like human beings, never ever writing down to them, or anyone else. i will stan judy blume until the day i die, and i hope - if you have children in your life - you share her amazing oeuvre with them. show less

A book I read three or four (or more?) times when I was a kid. Stumbled across it in a used book shop this past week and couldn't leave it there. A good exploration of early adolescence and the ways adults keep secrets from children as well as an interesting (remembered) snapshot of American childhood immediately post-WWII. I had remembered that Sally was Jewish and that that was important in some ways to the story, but I was surprised on this adult reread to see how many details of growing up Jewish at that time there are in the book. It really added another layer of interest for me this time.

I never read Blume as a child. I don't know if it's because our very small library didn't stock it (controversy? shelf space?) or they did, and I simply wasn't interested. So, when this offered to me, I figured I'd try it, see what I was missing.

Well, if this is one of the ones that gets banned, the morality police really need to get a life. Perhaps, when originally written, mention of a bathroom that looks like bordello would have shocked, but, after all, bordello is not defined - so the book may have taught some children the value of a dictionary....

In any case, to judge the story itself, meh. Some slightly interesting characters and episodes - but so many of both that we didn't really get to know them, to feel for them. I do have a show more sense that some young girls will empathize enough to reread it, and put part of themselves into it, and therefore enjoy it more. But I just couldn't bring myself to care. show less