Melissa Senate

All I wanted for my twelfth birthday was Valerie Bertinelli's hair from One Day At A Time. Feathered wings. Impossible when you have thick, curly hair like mine. My mother tried to tell me this, refused to let me get my all-one-length hair cut. So I grabbed some scissors and decided to become my own personal stylist! You can imagine the hair cut I gave myself. The wings didn't work, so I decided to just cut them off. As in chopped them completely off. I was left with a stub where bangs might be. And to prevent them from growing out and making me look worse, I kept cutting them up to my hair line. (Note: that is not me, at 12, as the headline suggests! It's Valerie B!)

You might think this was the worst of my problems at twelve. It wasn't. So when Jennifer O'Connell asked me to contribute an essay to this anthology, EVERYTHING I NEEDED TO KNOW ABOUT BEING A GIRL, I LEARNED FROM JUDY BLUME, I jumped at the chance to revisit those crazy days. Judy Blume, who brought us Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret and It's Not The End Of The World and Forever and Deenie, just to name a few, had an enormous impact on me when I was an adolescent (and an extra confused one, at that!). I wrote my essay on how much Then Again, Maybe I Won't meant to me that insane summer when I turned twelve and  the Son of Sam was on his shooting rampage and my mother remarrried and moved us off to the burbs. The collection (which hits stores tomorrow) features twenty-four bestselling and amazing female writers (such as Meg Cabot and Megan McCafferty and Alison Pace and Lynda Curnyn and Kristin Harmel and, and, and!) and I can't wait to read all their essays! 

"This collection of 24 essays edited by O'Connell (Plan B) pays tribute to the influence of Judy Blume and her work about coming-of-age as a girl in America. In each piece, the writer reveals what O'Connell calls her "Judy Blume moment," telling a heartfelt and revealing story that reflects the same social awkwardness and true-to-life experiences Blume conveys in her novels, from menstruation to childhood bullying to masturbation. In "Cry, Linda, Cry," Meg Cabot recalls how Blume's book Blubbertaught her how to laugh at herself, while also giving her the courage to stand up to schoolgirl bullies. Likewise, Stephanie Lessing, in "The One That Got Away," reflects on Blume's It's Not the End of the World, explaining the solace she found in its understanding of what it's like when parents divorce. Readers who similarly found solace and support in Blume's work should relate easily to these writers through the Blumian characters and themes they evoke. Writing in the spirit of Blume, these women present their experiences as a series of personal truths: "girl moments. Woman moments, Human moments."  –Publishers Weekly

Check out more reviews in this week's People and Entertainment Weekly! 

Enjoy!