Judy Blume Forever

Davina Pardo and Leah Wolchok's 2023 documentary is about the writer Judy Blume. From the seventies onwards Blume wrote books for adolescents and treated directly subjects that had not been addressed to that age group. At the centre are readers' letters. Blume kept the letters that arrived over forty years; children wrote to her what they could tell nobody else, and she answered most of them. That archive is the film's real material. Her books were repeatedly banned and removed from libraries; the documentary does not leave that argument in the past and connects it to attempts at banning that continue today. The tone is largely celebratory. Who it's for: those who like literary documentary and are interested in debates over book bans. Who it's not for: viewers expecting a critical portrait; the documentary stays close to its subject.