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Blubber Review

Jill is in the fifth grade; she's a good student who talks too much and at the wrong time in class. She's working hard to break her nail-biting habit, and she deplores her younger brother's annoying habit of constantly quoting from the Guinness Book of Records. At school, she follows the lead of the class bully in repeatedly humiliating a chubby classmate, nicknaming her Blubber. Jill and her best friend, Tracy, put rotten eggs in a neighbor's mail box at Halloween because they think he's an old grouch.

Children's books are typically morality tales; that's why we know at the outset that Jill is going to triumph in her struggle with nail-biting, that she is going to develop a loving appreciation of her brother, she will realize the harm of her bullying and apologize and become friends with her besieged classmate, and that she and Tracy will discover their grouchy neighbor is a kind old man who still grieves for the loss of his beloved wife. But that's not what happens.

Maybe it's because Judy Blume's story formula imitates reality, or maybe it's because this story is reality (based on a true incident in her daughter's fifth-grade class), but the story does not unfold as the expected morality tale. Jill does free herself from her unhealthy relationship with Wendy, the class bully, but she chews off all her fingernails in the process. She and Tracy do have to make amends to their grouchy neighbor, and in the process Jill's father discovers that their neighbor really is a mean-spirited child hater. And Jill and the rest of her classmates eventually do stop harassing Linda ("Blubber"), but no one apologizes to the girl who seems always to be wearing a kick-me sign.

Blume's characters take some getting used to -- a mother who sneaks cigarettes while she's trying to stop smoking, a father who yells at the top of his lungs to get obedience, and children who are allowed to use bad language at home, with the off-hand warning that they need to use good sense about using it in public. So maybe the moral in Blume's books is that something is always going wrong and something is always going right, life goes on, and we usually learn something from our mistakes. Whatever her message, children of all ages have been flocking to her books since the first one was published in 1969.

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Customer Reviews

the horrible truth of bullying - Kelsey May Dangelo - Vermont
Jill is a typical fifth grade girl who finds herself caught up in the cruel bullying of Linda (whom the class dubs "Blubber") through her fear of the bossy, cool Wendy. There is something about Linda that just makes everyone want to pick on her, according to Jill. Meanwhile, Jill also eggs her mean neighbor on Halloween, because he deserves it. What will happen when Jill finds herself in Linda's place? Will the fifth grade class learn their lesson? Blume perfectly captures the voice, mind, and motivation (a shallow sense of right and wrong, of little true motivation, a lack of empathy or consequence) of fifth graders, along with their characters, and the horrific world of bullying and victimization. Grade: A-

I really don't get it. - LH - USA
Realistic? Sure, in the sense that bullying is a guaranteed phenomenon when you force a group of immature people to be together with little guidance or oversight. (Not that the reminder has done any good -- the compulsory institutionalization of children in the name of "education" is a hazing of sorts that our society seems perfectly happy to keep in place.) And yet unrealistic -- the book (and Blume's style of writing in general) reminds me of the after-school specials I grew up with -- which dealt with valid issues and situations, yet with characters and motivations that I could not relate to because they were such awful caricatures and stereotypes. It was compelling in the way that a train wreck is compelling, but I always felt depressed and sickened afterwards. None of it helped me deal better with my own struggles; it did not make me feel less alone; there was nothing in the least edifying about it. It just made me feel icky.

A previous commenter wondered whether it might actually be fuel for bullies-in-making. While what people do with a work is not necessarily an indictment of the work itself, in this case the fact is that it reads almost purely as an observational study with little self-analysis or moralizing message implied (and it's arguable whether there is actually any,) so of course there are people for whom it's going to be easy to see it as a primer. This was actually just my experience in middle school -- the bullies thought it fantastic fodder -- and I wouldn't be surprised if it has been much used in this way. People seem to think the book is valuable simply because it *describes* bullying, as if it's something we're all unaware of and need to be enlightened about. But we already know it happens, and children see it around them and experience it first-hand. The book adds no insight, so I don't know what the point of it is, except as titillating melodrama. I'd honestly be interested to hear from anyone who it helped to either not bully or to recover from the bullying, because I am just not seeing what it is about the book that would accomplish that.

Bullying 101 - Chelsea king - Shreveport, LA
Blubber is a story of fifth grade! It teaches you all the ups and downs from bullying to losing your best friend! The information in this book is real life. Nothing is fake! Since I am in school I think about these things!

Blubber is a book of pure intelligence! Jill, Tracy, and Wendy all bully a new girl at their school. They bully Linda to tears! Just because she is fat! But after Jill and Tracy had their fun they learned from the best. Linda started to give them a taste of their own medicine! She showed them what it feels like to be bullied!

Jill who was a really popular girl was made fun of! Linda had the nickname of "Blubber!" But Jill was given the name "Big Baby!" The story perfectly blends with the fifth grade feeling! Jill was bully and Linda was the victim. But then the story totally turned around! Linda moved up and became both popular and a bully! Both characters have been on the place of the bully and the victim!

The book is great and you should read it!

*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Aug 09, 2010 09:05:05

Children's Books

Monday, August 9, 2010