Amazon Prime Video has released the trailer for “Judy Blume Forever,” a documentary celebrating the trailblazing career of the young adult author and her lifelong fight against censorship.
Directed by Davina Pardo and Leah Wolchok, the film examines the impact of books like “Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret,” “Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing,” and “Blubber” – on current and former young people. That includes multiple generations of readers who became writers and artists, such as Lena Dunham, Molly Ringwald, Anna Konkle, and Samantha Bee, all of whom appear in the film.
The clip opens with Blume talking about her daughter’s request for her to write a book about “teenagers who fall in love and do it and nobody has to die, and I thought, ‘Yes!’”
Justin Chanda, SVP of Children’s Publishing at Simon & Schuster, shares what it felt like to discover her books: “There was this moment where, wow, like, Judy’s talking to me.”
The film also captures Blume’s relationship with her readers, which extended to becoming pen pals for several years with some of them. It dives into her battle against censorship, which extends as far back to the 1970s with the publication of her earliest novels. “I think that kids have a right to read and to get honest answers to their questions,” she says in an older clip.
Touching on the long-term effect of her work, author Jason Reynolds sums it up with, “I don’t think that Judy Blume wrote her books to be timeless; I think she wrote her books to be timely, and they were so timeless they became timely.”
Produced by Davina Pardo, Leah Wolchok, Sara Bernstein, Justin Wilkes, and Marcella Steingart, “Judy Blume Forever” debuted at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. It premieres on Prime Video on April 21, 2023.
Check out the trailer above don’t miss our interview with the filmmakers from Sundance.
