Parisian Phoenix Publishing

The other day I was getting ready for an event and I got a text from our art director, Gayle.

“Look what I found at the Dollar Tree. What do you think of these covers?”

“OMG!” I replied. “I was just talking about Judy Blume the other day. I want them!”

And then I realized that she had asked me a question about the book design.

“I love the bold colors and the spines, but the use of texts on the front of ‘Are You There God?’ is disturbing.”

“Probably a choice to appeal to today’s tweens,” Gayle answered.

(And the new movie, I bet.)

So, I did what any normal, Judy Blume-loving bibliophile would do. I went to my local Dollar Tree.

My Dollar Tree was a disaster compared to the neat shelves in Gayle’s photos. I found two of the books, Deenie and Then Again, Maybe I Won’t. I bought them–using a six-year-old gift card our editor and poet Nancy Scott had found in her closet.

That got me thinking. Were these abridged? A search of the books online proved they are not. But they are old. Like, older than me old. Then Again came out in 1971 and Deenie followed in 1973. Each book has had more than 70 printings.

So now Judy Blume is in the Dollar Tree with Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys. Is this because they are out of date? Or so much a household name?

I think it’s cool. Sure, these books are pretty basic and printed on cheap paper but if they expose some child to reading, and deliver a message on top of it, that’s great. Because at $1.25, children have access to the greatest books of the earlier generations.