Deenie

Deenie
Deenie by Judy Blume is just like all her other books; insightful and realistic. And, as is typical of her works, she is able to reach out to younger readers where the kids feel like she does understand their pain. In this way, the topics she covered were ones that kids often wonder about. Deenie stays true to her style of writing; in this case, she talks about an overbearing mother and how her daughters are affected by her expectations. 

Deenie is the name of the main protagonist. She is a young girl who is just entering her teenage years. Unfortunately, her mother already has her life planned out for her. Thus, she is pressured to start a modeling career. In this way, her mother encourages her to build her self-esteem around her looks. The mother is quite pushy about signing her up with different agencies and thus, blamed a few failures on the girl. Then Deenie makes a startling discovery – she has scoliosis. It is a hard adjustment for her (if you think about it, she has to deal with the domineering mother, peer pressure and puberty). How does a girl, who has been lead to build her self-worth around her looks handle something that will affect her outward appearance for a while? As it is, the news hit the mother quite hard; Deenie's chance at modeling was her way of living out her own dreams. Fortunately, Deenie copes with her mother and changes in her life quite well. She does this by reevaluating what is most important to her.

It is a touching story as you explore the world through the eyes of a teenage girl. You experience pangs of pain as she goes through tough time. At the same time, you rejoice when she makes major breakthroughs in her life (like the time she stops hiding the brace from her boyfriend). In the end, Blume tells everyone that folks should be happy being who they are, not what someone else wants you to be. There's also a lesson in here for parents; perhaps it's best to let your little ones find their own ambition.

There are a number of reasons why Blume remains a top favorite amongst teens. She covers topics like sexuality, divorce, problems at school and at home, racism, to name a few. In Deenie, she talks about menstruation and masturbation which made a number of parents antsy about this novel. Which is a shame since the way she covered it was neither radical nor scandalous. She approached the topic from the perspective of the teen and it was meant to answer a lot of questions they had about such topics. 

I found it sad that folks would rather see her book as a negative influence rather than understand how it could help both the readers and parents. Take Deenie's mother. Every time I come across folks who push their children too hard, I always think of this book. I especially think of those instances when parents send their young ones to modeling agencies. Is it like Deenie? Do those kids grow up with a sense of guilt for not living up to someone else's expectations? The book will be a great read, not just for them but all teens who are trying to make sense of becoming an adult. It's better than those books with fairytale-like family situations that always made kids feel weird and abnormal.