Judy Blume is the patron saint of teen girl readers – so why did a man write her biography?

I’m Generation X, so of course I was raised by Judy Blume, the patron saint of teen girl readers from the 1970s on, with her frank, funny realist novels on everything from first periods to first sexual encounters.

I’m a children’s writer, so of course I reached for her books to help me parent my own children.

And when my now 20-year-old daughter sees my copy of Judy Blume: A Life lying on our kitchen counter, she says, horrified, “Why is a man writing Judy Blume’s biography?”