5 Reasons I’ve Read Judy Blume’s Superfudge So Many Times

Judy Blume’s Superfudge is a breezy novel for children that was first published in 1980 and heck yeah I’ve read it whole bunch of times. Growing up, it’s probably the book I re-read the most because it was familiar, comforting, and gently funny—like a sitcom of its era, but good—and offered real insight and actual answers to questions the young me had about life and other parts of the world. (Unlike a sitcom of its era.) As I’ve grown up, I still occasionally turn to Judy Blume’s awesome sequel to Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing about New York City city boy Peter Hatcher, his wretchedly annoying five-year-old brother Farley “Fudge” Hatcher, and assorted parents and pets all moving to idyllic Princeton, New Jersey, for low-stakes, episodic adventures. All the best middle-grade novels—Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, Beverly Clearly’s Ramona and Henry Huggins books—are like this, but Superfudge is the best of the best, straight up.
Because I wanted to know what having a little brother was like
I first started reading Superfudge when I was about seven or so. I was the youngest in my family, and by a wide margin. This was also about the time when they started to get into teen stuff, and thus not really wanting to hang out and play with a little kid like me anymore. I didn’t so much turn to books for comfort so much as I did enter that phase where I really wanted a little sibling to be a big brother to. (When I floated this prospect to my mother, she literally laughed, and for like a solid minute.) It’s then that I began to read and re-read Superfudge a bunch to give myself a taste of what it was like to actually have a younger sibling, as Peter had two—Fudge and new baby Tootsie. And honestly, on the surface, it seemed like a nightmare for Peter. Fudge made his life kind of horrible. “Screw that,” said my brain, and I got the want for a new sibling straight out of my system.

Because I wanted to know what the ’70s were like
Little-known fact: Blume has actually updated Superfudge over the years. She didn’t need to change much of the actual story or themes or characters, as those were unimpeachable. Rather she updated the pop culture references so as to keep the novel fresh for those readers who discover if at the school library year in and year out. For example, the classic scene in which Peter and a date lock fingers in a shared popcorn bucket at a screening of Superman was changed in the early 2000s to Spider-Man. That’s a pretty easy swap-out, but I read the ’70s version of Superfudge in the ’80s specifically because it gave me an idea of what everyday life was like in the late ’70s. Novels are often the best historical texts for casually relating the details of what it was like to be alive at a certain time. As the youngest of three, constantly hearing stories about my family’s life before I came around, Superfudge gave me context and knowledge.
Because I wanted to know what East Coast life was like
Similarly, as a child happily ensconced in the suburbs, Superfudge provided a sense of what is what like to grow up in a big city, and then in a more breathable part of the East Coast. In my consciousness as a child, New York was a harrowing hellscape of decay, crime, evil, and steaming manhole covers; Superfudge showed me that Peter was a cool kid and could navigate the city with familiarity and comfort, that it was actually quite vibrant and lovely. But then he and his family move to Princeton, New Jersey, which seems lovely and perfect and way better than New York. I feel this book may have subtly influenced by life’s trajectory of never, ever moving to New York City.
Because it helps me remember what it’s like to be a kid
Blume writes for children so well, but she also writes about children so well. She doesn’t belittle, demean, or patronize her young readers or her young characters in any way, presenting their problems, concerns, thoughts, and feelings with respect and depth. I’m a parent now, and Peter is roughly the age my own son is at present. Blume’s books, not just Superfudge, are as good a parenting textbook as any book that purports to be specifically about parenting. They’re a great way to check-in with the psyche of a child, and Superfudge provides a hyper-realistic, super-sensitive portrayal of a sharp kid on the verge of adolescence. If I ever feel out of touch with my kid—or if I ever forget what it was like to be a kid—I can re-read a Blume novel to empathize with that mindset, and quick.
Because it’s got an unreliable narrator
Perhaps it’s just because I’ve read it so many times, and when you do that you start to find things in a book that aren’t really there, but there are weird things going on beneath the surface of Superfudge that one normally doesn’t see in middle grade fiction. For example, there’s a huge disconnect between the way Peter sees Fudge and how the rest of the world does. Temper tantrums, huge messes; he straight up runs away at some point, but the parents and everyone just thinks Fudge is sooooo cute and winsome and Peter is a jealous, moody, pre-adolescent grump for disagreeing. Either Peter is wrong or the world is, because Fudge is clearly terrible…as Peter tells it, that is. There’s something missing from the story. Either Peter is purposely making Fudge look extra bad to make his own story seem more legit, or he’s leaving some of his own flaws out of the story. This is some edgy, Alex in A Clockwork Orange-type stuff that Judy Blume has thrown into the mix. I think.
How many times have you read Superfudge?