I was recently asked to compile a list of my all time favourite books, how could any list be complete without Judy Blume's FOREVER?? It's hard to believe this book was written in 1975, because the topic is still very relevant...teenage sex. I remember reading this book in year eight at secondary school, a dog earred copy was passed around the year group. "Have you met Ralph yet?" I was asked when I'd started reading the book. I hadn't at that point...was surprised when "Ralph" turned out to be Michael's (the boy in the book) nickname for his todger. After reading the book (under the duvet...was convinced I would be grounded for life if my mum knew what I was reading!) that was my biggest question...do boys really call their todger's names like Ralph? Once I got to my late teenage years I realised "Ralph's" weren't all that common!
I'm sure most of my friends from school still remember when they read FOREVER...it's always been a controversial book which caused a scandal when it was first released. Thankfully this book has stood the test of time, probably for a number of reasons...we may be living in a high tech world that didn't exist nearly 30 years ago...but some things stay the same. I imagine that if I read FOREVER now it would transport me straight back to those teenage years of uncertainty, the emotional rollercoaster of hormones...
FOREVER is a book that as the title suggests will stay with me, Forever...will I let my daughters read it when they are older? Yes. FOREVER was never about gratuitous sex there was a message behind it, maybe it should be read in English classes...we are so quick to not talk about teenage sex, it may go some way to our teenagers being open enough to talk about it with their parents. Although we probably wouldn't have been able to read it at our secondary school - we had one teacher who tippexed all the swear words out of Gregory's Girl...Imagine what she'd have done with FOREVER!!!
I feel quite nostalgic now...I might even go and order FOREVER from Amazon...
I'm sure most of my friends from school still remember when they read FOREVER...it's always been a controversial book which caused a scandal when it was first released. Thankfully this book has stood the test of time, probably for a number of reasons...we may be living in a high tech world that didn't exist nearly 30 years ago...but some things stay the same. I imagine that if I read FOREVER now it would transport me straight back to those teenage years of uncertainty, the emotional rollercoaster of hormones...
FOREVER is a book that as the title suggests will stay with me, Forever...will I let my daughters read it when they are older? Yes. FOREVER was never about gratuitous sex there was a message behind it, maybe it should be read in English classes...we are so quick to not talk about teenage sex, it may go some way to our teenagers being open enough to talk about it with their parents. Although we probably wouldn't have been able to read it at our secondary school - we had one teacher who tippexed all the swear words out of Gregory's Girl...Imagine what she'd have done with FOREVER!!!
I feel quite nostalgic now...I might even go and order FOREVER from Amazon...