june 17th is blumesday! i wrote about it last year, it's a play on bloomsday which honors james joyce's ulysses. blumesday is set on the birthday of judy blume. i decided to celebrate it this year, with a quick rereading of blubber.
i remember reading blubber as a kid, but other than remembering it was about a fat kid and that i learned that the fat of a whale is called blubber from it, i didn't recall much else.
rereading it as an adult, i am surprised that it is not required reading for schools especially with the recent fight against bullying. blubber is told from the perspective of a fifth-grader, jill. jill is part of the "in crowd" though kids normally don't get that label until jr. high. she is follows, what thanks to mean girls we know term as the queen bee, wendy and bullies a fat girl named linda. linda had the misfortune to give a report on whales, in which she had to explain what blubber is. the kids, being cruel like they truly can be, start calling her blubber. wendy is a real regina george, i mean the bullying shocked me. not only did they force linda to kiss a boy on the cheek, but they also made her pull up her skirt and show her underwear! in today's world, such actions would have resulted in a suspension and a sexual harassment lawsuit. jill is there being a bully, though linda has never done anything mean to her. jill did demonstrate some regret when she discussed with her mom how to deal with kids making fun of you. her mom tells her to laugh it off, but also warns her that one day she could be the one that is teased.
then one day, the bullying goes too far. the students lock linda in a closet. (before i go on i must share that i was surprised how their lunch hour was ran. rather then have lunch in cafeteria, the kids were left in the classrooms with an adult patrolling the hallways and sneaking her head in. did schools really run like this? this is outrageous! again if this happened today, a lawsuit would definitely occur due to lack of supervision). they decided to put linda on trial for telling on jill and tracy, however, jill realized she was sick of wendy bossing her around, she stood up to the queen bee. though jill was winning in the self-esteem department, she totally lost socially.
the next day, wendy and lisa become bff and begin to bully jill. they call her baby, and pull the same things they did on linda (minus the skirt lifting and kissing.) jill then pulled a cady, and makes wendy's number two, carolina jealous of wendy and linda's new found friendship. this little tiff then results in all of the girls making new best friends and they all move on. it appears as though nothing is truly resolved, but it's just like the mean girls' ending, each girl friends a new group of friends and life goes on, which is exactly how it is in life.
having been a fifth-grader once in my life and a female and having queen bee tendencies, i can say that this is how life is in elementary school. i mean i was never a bully, though i did get my 6th grade class to stop talking to my best friend because she once didn't invite me over to play at her house. (there are more details that somewhat justify my actions). but we females, unfortunately, hate each other guts one day and then are bffs the next. i would like to say at some point women grow out of it, but i have seen thirty/fortysomethings fight like the girls in this story. sad, i know.
as i mentioned before it is a great book for kids to read. blume shared at the end of this edition, how the story was based on an incident that occurred in her daughter's class. she wrote it in hopes that kids will not keep their bullying a secret. this is a book every kid should read, though i warn there is foul language in it. jill calls her teacher a bitch (something i thought was mature for a fifth grader). jill also used another cuss word though she explained that her parents let her cuss.
i also have to give kudos to blume for having great maudie, such a health food nut. i noticed blume being up on the health food treat in the fudge books, and her being from portland this all makes sense, but really these books are like thirtysomeodd years old. but yay great maudie for being into wheat mush and juices!
back to the book, if you read it as a kid, give it a reread. and if you have kids and need a talking point for bullying, use this book!
No comments:
Post a Comment