Blume makes romance relevant to young character as Margaret has a rule to name one of boys in class to like in her secret club with three other girls. Yet, she also
narrates that the character actively constructs the knowledge about romance. In this case, Margaret
has to keep Moose’s name for herself “He was definitely number one in my Boy Book, even if nobody knew it but me.
” 91 because even though she ‘likes the way he sang as he worked and his clean and white teeth 38, Margaret is
not brave enough to list his name and share it to the other club secret for she know what the leading girl, Nancy,
would think for “she hated him”38. Later, Margaret comes to a complete understanding that liking somebody should not depend on
whether somebody else likes or dislikes our own choice. As a result, when Nancy objects who Margaret likes and asks how come she likes, Margaret is mad for Nancy
does not ask the other member then why Margaret has to tell the reason. Therefore, she ‘raised my Margaret eyebrow at Nancy, then looked away. She got the
message.” 44
1.2. Sensuality
The reference to sensuality which relates to giving or expressing pleasure through the physical senses is also another absent
issue in children’s books. Especially in Deenie
, it is mentioned about the female major character’s romance relationship to a boy. Deenie’s relationship with Buddy Brader is special one because
she falls in love when Buddy just touches her hair, “Listen,” Buddy said, “I’ve got to eat my lunch now. Don’t forget the
mixer... I’ve got a solo and all.” “I won’t forget”.
He finally took his hand off my hair. I may never shampoo it again. 122 PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
The more special relationship is shown when they are watching a movie that they are holding hands,
He reached down for my hand instead. I never held hands with a boy before. At least, never like that, in a dark place where you don’t have to
hold hands because you need a partner for any special reason, like dancing or some
thing. It felt very nice too. Buddy’s fingers were warm... 66 The other example is taken from Starring Sally when Sally expresses her
feeling to Peter which she does in Peter’s brother’s wedding day. When the three of them reached the side yard Peter said,
“Okay…we’re in private now.” “Well…” Sally said, taking a deep breath, “in honor of your brother’s
wedding, congratulation” She leaned over and kissed him on the mouth.
He turned bright red. “What’d you do that for?” Sally blushed too. “I told you… It was in honor of your brother’s wedding…”
She chewed on her bottom lip and pulled at her midriff. Peter leaned over and kissed Sally back.
“What’s that for?” she asked. “For letting me copy off you on our last spelling test.” 192
Not only in Deenie and Starring Sally, Blume also creates the kissing scenes in most of her novels. Margaret and Philip kiss while playing Two Minutes in the
Closet 80 while Davey were kissing Hugh in the night of her father’s murder 198.
Besides showing the relevant experience of youth through sensuality, the novels also shows how those kids negotiate the discourse of sensuality as well as the
other knowledge that are available to them. Deenie, for example, negotiates her perspective about Buddy Brader for her friend, Midge, once says after the movie that
it is cheap to let boys sit next to her in the movies. Midge adds that boys are just interested in what they could get in the dark 68. With this opinion, Deenie finds to
prove whether Midge is right about Buddy. At the end, Deenie gladly knows that PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
Buddy is not that kind of person. It is shown when he respects Deenie’s decision for
not taking her Milwaukee brace off her body while they are kissing. Later Buddy grabbed my hand and led me into the part of the basement
where Janet’s mother does the laundry. It was dark and kind of damp in
there and it smelled like Clorox. Buddy said, “Couldn’t you take off your brace for a little while?
I thought about the shopping bag I’d left upstairs. “No,” I told Buddy. “I have to wear it all the time.”
“Oh well...” Buddy said. This time when he kissed me I concentrated on kissing him back. I hoped I was doing it right. 159
It is understood when the idea of romance and sensuality involving love and kissing are too scary for adults to
accept as part of their children’s life. It is especially because there is intention to protect them from being innocence corrupted and to
prevent them from being exposed to commonly said to be adults’ prerogative. Adults are afraid that children include the issues before they are adult enough by imitating as
described in the novels. Yet, though might be shocking, as Robinson reports, from the early age, children have strong sense of desire, wish to act on that desire, and are
actively engaged in constructing their sexual subjectivities as the novels try to say
87
. 1.3.
Puberty
The perceived loss of innocence in childhood has been used to view and treat children in the family, schools, and in society more broadly. Constituted in the name
of protection toward the loss of innocence and in the best interest of the child, children’s subjectivities toward sexuality and the terms related have been rejected
intensively. Graphic description of sex, the pictures of nude male and female bodies,
87
Robinson 87.
and the use of proper names for anatomical parts are associated to be harmful and aged-inappropriate for children.
As well as discussing sex education, talking about puberty is also difficult. Through her books, Blume presents the issues related to puberty. The novels explain
much about children’s body changes as well as the feelings they might feel during the process. They also portray how children make meaning and are eager to understand
their sexual reproduction development. The novels appear to believe that kids and sexuality are developing together and sexuality is not only adults’ stuffs.
1.3.1. Menstruation
In Margaret, Blume deals with a girl who longs for her period. Margaret has been terribly waiting and requesting it to God. For one reason, she feels worrisome as
her friends have got their period while she has not. It is especially because she and her group PTSs create rule that one who gets the first period should tell the other
member all about it. Therefore, as Gretchen, one of the members has got it, Margaret begins worrying and shares her feeling to God.
Are you there God? It’s me, Margaret. Gretchen, my friend, got her period. I’m so jealous, God. I hate myself for being so jealous, but I am. I wish you’d
help me just a little. Nancy’s sure she’s going to get it soon, too. And if I’m last I don’t know what I’ll do. Oh, please, God. I just want to be normal. 86
Margaret’s concern in relating her menstruation to the sign of normalcy makes her worry to become the last person in the club who gets the period. Later, as she
searches for insight in her understanding, Margaret acknowledges that there is something she can not do but patiently wait. This is portrayed as she finally realizes
that her friend Nancy, who is also dying to be the first to get period, makes up a story about her menstruation.
Nancy washed her hands and face. I handed her two paper towels to dry herself... I felt kind of sorry for Nancy then. I want my
period too, but not enough to lie about it. 91
From the example, it can be seen that the character Margaret represents childhood in which the period is also about having the active engagement in
constructing children’s sexual subjectivity.
1.3.2. Breast Development
Also in Margaret, another girls’ puberty which receives primary concern
from Blume as one of physical developments is on female’s breasts. Blume portrays the main character Margaret as a girl who is eager to see her breasts grown when her
new friend Nancy expects that city girl from New York should be very grown up. Surely because Margaret wants to look normal as a girl, she makes struggles for it,
starting from asking and praying to God to putting cotton to fill her bra. Are you there, God? It’s me, Margaret. I just told my mother I want a bra.
Please help me grow, God. You know where… 36
In her other pray, Margaret also wishes. Are you there, God? See how nice my bra looks now That’s all I need – just
a little help. I’ll really be good around the house, God. I’ll clear the table every night for a month at least Please God… 72
Blume does not seem to display difficult issues like breast development in girl without significance. Here we can see that the appearance of Margaret’s eagerness of
her breast development r epresents Margaret’s willingness to feel and to be normal
girl among her friends. Similar to menstruation, the knowledge of breast development leads Margaret to redefine normality.
1.3.3. Wet Dreams
Blume breaks that barrier by presenting sexual issues which actually belong not only to adults but also to children. Tony, the male character of Then Again, is
allowed to tell the readers about his panicking first experience on wet dream. However, not only being panic on his first wet dream, Tony has initial conclusion that
the pain on his stomach is actually the reason why he gets the wet dreams. That night I dream about Lisa. My dream went on and on. It started out at
the football game where Lisa put her arm around me. Only in my dream she didn’t stop there. And Corky was in it too. She was sitting on the football
field and Lisa kept saying, “You see, Corky.... here’s what to do...to do...to do...” I woke up suddenly. It was morning. I felt wet and my pyjamas were
sticky. Oh God There is something wrong with me. Really wrong. Dr. Holland doesn’t know what he’s talking about I am so sick. This proves it.
92-93
In the other passage, readers can also find that Tony feels ashamed about his first experience on wet dream as he thinks that it is because he thinks too much about girls
and his father would be angry at him. I had an awful day. I
couldn’t concentrate on my school work and I got yelled at in English for not paying attention. How could I pay attention? I
kept thinking that when I get home the whole family’s going to be there. Mom and Pop, Grandma, Ralph and Angie, Vicki, Maxine, even cousin
Ginger They’ll know about me. Maxine will show them the sheet and my mother will say, “I don’t buy the best sheets for you to mess up, Anthony”
I’ll say, “It was an accident Mom...a mistake...it won’t happen again.” And Ralph will say, “If you hadn’t been thinking about that girl this never
would have happened.” Then Pop will say, “I expected great things from you, Tony... And this is
what I get” 94 PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
Considering that Blume’s inspiration in writing novels comes from her own childhood and from h
er daughter and son’s experience, talking about wet dreams happening to a sixth grader shows that she depicts a real portrayal of a character. This
confirms that believing children are innocent is absolutely only general and false assumption. Robinson reports
two major studies on children’s sexual thinking and experiences by Goldman and Goldman. Based on their findings, they argue that if
information about sexuality is not made available to children early, they tend to complete the picture of sex differences, sexual relations and other sexuality
information from their imagination or by shared ignorance with friends in which this serves worse than providing the accurate and correct knowledge even in fictions
88
.
1.3.4. Masturbation
As one of sexual activities, masturbation is of course absent from kids’ life
and from their literature. As parents are also fearful that children will do what they read about in books, Klein claims that these parental fears are based on the false
belief that children would never have had the thought without the books.
89
For example, kids would never have thought about masturbating. Then when they read
about it, adults assume that that is all they will do. The discourse that children are asexual, immature, vulnerable, and innocent
has impacted in how children are continuously viewed and treated. Especially when related to sexual pleasure like masturbation, myths to label the activity as distortion,
abnormality, and sins even seem to appear to give fears of doing it, and furthermore
88
See Robinson 17.
89
See West 25.
to give psychological punishments in order to avoid this sexual activity. The myths related to physical effects start from the bone deformity, the stop of height grows,
infertility, going insane, to the blindness
90
. Regardless to those myths, Blume makes masturbation relevant to her character Deenie. This can bee seen by the way how
Deenie describes in the novel, I started touching myself. I have this special place and when I rub it I get a
very nice feeling, I don’t know what it’s called or if anyone else has it but when I have trouble falling asleep, touching my special place helps a lot.
59
In the other part of the novel, it is also said, I got out of my brace and into the tub. At first I was bored just lying there.
Usually I take showers and out of fast as possible. But the hot water was very relaxing and soon I began to enjoy it. I reached down and touch my special
place with the washcloths. I rubbed and rubbed until I got that good feeling. 148
Like in the real childhood development, masturbation here is present for Deenie tries to understand about her sexual life. She questions about if it is normal, if
everybody masturbates, and, most importantly, if it has something to do with her scoliosis.
Deenie’s half and misinformed knowledge on her masturbation is later answered by the gym teacher.
As one of sexual developmental stages, masturbation has difficult access to be discussed with children because of the assumption that children and sexuality are
separated issues. Though Sigmund Freud was one of the first to offer a different
90
Lena Sullivan, Myths and Facts About Masturbation. 20 January 2011. Georgia Newsday. Website. 7 September 2013. http:www.georgianewsday.comhealthteen60708-myths-
and-facts-about-masturbation.html.
perspective that children’s initial feelings connecting them to the world were sexual in nature, and upheld that the repression of
children’s sexuality could result in various psychoses in adulthood, accepting childhood sexuality remains difficult.
1.4. Sexuality
Again, Children’s Literature inherits silencing on its own. The silencing has turned to be in various kinds. Even it has started before a writer writes his or her
book. Some go after the writing, during editing, and in the publishing. Considered as adults’ matter, sex and sexuality is for sure absent in children’s books to believe and
indeed to confirm that children are not yet adults Why Blume was frequently protested is obvious. Her characters are not
portrayed as innocent. Her argument says that ‘children might be inexperienced, but
they are not innocent’.
91
The idea did not yet exist that references to sexual matters could soil children’s innocent because nobody thought that the innocence really
existed. It was only toward the end of the 16
th
century that certain pedagogue –
Puritanism – refused to allow children to give indecent book any longer
92
. The young characters of Blume found in this study constantly negotiate the discourse of
sexuality available to them, and constantly try to understand themselves as sexual beings.
1.4.1. Teenage Sexuality
If the issues related to sexuality are even hard to talk, the issue of teenage sex can be scary for adults to find in books for young readers. That is why the other
91
West 11.
92
Heins 19.
of Blume’s novel containing sexual matter which has made parents and educators terribly upset is Forever. The catching content which has been the focus of the book
burning is about the sexual intercourses done by the ninth grader as the main character, Katherine and her boyfriend Michael.
We got into his bed and fell asleep for an hour and when we woke up Ralph was hard again. This time Michael made it last much, much longer and I got
so carried away I grabbed his backside with both hands, trying to push him deeper and deeper into me
—and I spread my legs as far apart as I could—and I raised my hips off the bed
—and I moved with him, again and again and again
—and at last, I came. I came right before Michael and as I did I made noises, just like my mother. Michael did too.
While he was still on top of me, catching his breath, I started laughing. I came …” I told him. I actually came. 76
Sexual intercourse depicted in Forever has been used to condemn the book as a pornographic novel especially because Blume decides to bring Katherine to
eventually and regularly have sex after her reluctance to do it like how it is told in the early part of the novel. Meanwhile, Reynolds claims Michael and Katherine are good
adolescent role model. This is due to the responsibility Katherine tries to hold in learning to make decision on her own sexual life. Reynolds argues despite the fact
that especially in Britain and in the United States young people are sexually active by the time they are sixteen, there is an urgent need to combat the high level of teenage
pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases by every possible means, including novels
93
. About this, she considers sexual education positively implied in Forever later discussed in the next part of this research.
93
Kimberley Reynolds, Radical Children’s Literature New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007 121.
1.4.2. Birth Control
The idea of taking birth control pills by Katherine has led educators to consider Forever as the manual of sex before marriage to young readers. In her effort
to have safe sex, Katherine decides to conduct a consultation in a Planned Parenthood clinic for planning the regular sexual intercourses with Michael.
I told her, I think its my responsibility to make sure I dont get pregnant. She nodded and said, Do you have one special boyfriend?
Yes. Have you discussed this with him?
Not really. How do you think hell feel about it?
Im sure hell be very happy. He approves of birth control. But coming here was all your idea?
Yes … absolutely. 68
Taking the birth control pills as well as condom taken by Katherine is told as her way to build the knowledge of responsible and safe sex from having the
unwanted pregnancy and the efforts of preventing herself from the venereal diseases spread by the sexual activities she might not expect to have for contraception is
implied by Blume as one way to the free-consequence sex among teenagers. Picking novels illustrating childhood sexuality may be considered as
dangerous for children when protectionism has been the major motive when dealing with children. However, by disapproving the discourse that children are naturally
asexual and that their innocence is perceived as normal rather than constructed, Blume
’s de-mythologizes childhood innocence and asexuality. They are seen as the undesirable and imposed ignorance. Sexuality here is viewed as equally important to
young people’s identity and subjectivity as other components like ethnicity, gender, and social class. More than that, this study will also explore how the existence of
these ‘inappropriate’ issues can lead readers to enjoy honest storytelling as well as to build a connection to the caring adults to talk and to get information about the issues.
2. Pleasures of Words and Understanding in Romance, Sensuality, and
Sexuality
Presenting honesty and details in children’s books suggests that several pleasures can be gained. For the example, the pleasure of words covers the patterns
their sounds can make. It is the interesting ways in which they combine with each other and their ability to express feelings and to picture images or ideas about
romance, sensuality, and sexuality. The pleasure of understanding can also be achieved with such difficult topics like sensuality and sexuality as readers see how
literature not only mirrors life but also a share of the authors’ comments on it and this
makes readers consider the meaning of their own existence. As the first discussion, literature offers the pleasures of words in which the
word itself becomes the most significant tool. This implies how language can express pictures and ideas. Through it, readers want to see how words can combine each other
to describe what a character feels about love, fear, and also anger
94
. In the portrayal of childhood romance or crushes for example, Blume depicts
how wonderful and sometime problematic kids can feel to like another person, a classmate, or a friend during their emotional growth. In Margaret, Margaret shares
her feeling about liking Moose Freed. She describes her admiration about the boy by telling the readers everything Moose does is lovable:
94
Nodelman, The Pleasures 20.
I liked the way he sang as he worked. I also liked his teeth….They were clean
and white teeth and white and one in the front was a little crooked. 38. Margaret is also excited to ride all the way to the city with him in the same car
though she gets a little disappointment to find that he sits in the back while she and Nancy are in the middle.
It was pretty exciting riding all the way to the city with Moose Freed in the same car, except the Wheelers used their station wagon. The boys sat in the
back and Nancy and I were in the middle, so if I wanted looking to see Moose I had turn around
and if I ride looking backwards like that I get car sick.” 89 Here, readers can portray how much Margaret wants to be with him by sitting
next Moose while they go to Radio City Music with Nancy’s family. 89.
It is the same thing with the crush between Margaret and Philip who get involved in the sensual activity in Two Minutes in the Closet game in which all of the
people in the party get a number and somebody calls a number to be the partner to go in a dark closet for two minutes and kiss. Since Philip, the boy Margaret adores in the
class calls her number, Margaret is depicted to be so nervous that she does not even know how
“I’d never able to make it across the recreation room to the bathroom, where Philip Leroy was waiting to kiss me” 79. She starts giggling until Philip says
he can not kiss if Margaret does not stop laughing that soon Margaret realizes Philip is going to kiss her on the mouth instead of cheeks. Blume depicts the kissing scene
by writing that Philip puts his hands on Margaret’s shoulders and he leans close before he kisses Margaret with fast kisses for several times described to be not the
kind in the movies where boys and girls cling together for a long time 79-80. The kissing ensures Margaret that Philip is the one she likes most among the boys in the
class. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
The clear pic torial of those kids’ romance in the novels indeed successfully
express that in their young age, such feelings are important and genuine. The words enable Blume to send this message to readers so that they can feel what the characters
feel about having crushes with someone they like a lot. On the contrary, when their romantic relationships are silenced from the book, those characters’ feelings may
flaw. Also in the description related to puberty especially menstruation, even
though menstrual process is not depicted mainly to be informative in the novel like commonly found in encyclopaedia, readers are pleased to be able to visualize the
imaginative experience of the sexual growth in which the character Margaret shares the excitement of welcoming the first period as her best moment in her life.
I started to laugh and cry at the sa me time. “My period. I’ve got my period”
My nose started running and I reach for a tissue. 122 The tear and the laugh are what come to Margaret as previously she has to
worry about being the last member of her group who gets period. It is because previously she is narrated angry and disappointed when God has not answered her
pray to soon menstruate like the other girls. Margaret tells her mother about it enthusiastically while both of their noses start running and sniffling for the happiness.
The sexual development of menstruation makes her mother now accept that she is not her little girl anymore and that Margaret also feels she is now growing for sure and
she is almost a real woman. From an honest perspective of a girl who is badly eager to menstruate in order
to meet the girls’ standard of normalcy, readers are able to portray Margaret’s PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
