Rachelle Bergstein at Literary Hub:
Like many adolescents, Deenie has a secret.
Or maybe “secret” isn’t the right word. Deenie has a private ritual, something she does when she can’t sleep. She doesn’t know why, but it makes her feel better. Touching her “special place” helps stave off her worries. Or, as she puts it, “I have this special place and when I rub it I get a very nice feeling.”
Let’s be clear—until Judy Blume’s 1973 novel Deenie, girls didn’t masturbate in children’s literature. Inventive, now classic characters like Pippi Longstocking and Ramona Quimby were zany and unpredictable, but they certainly never told us where their hands wandered when they were alone. Even now, the mention of self-pleasure in a young adult book is enough to get it yanked from school libraries.
More here.
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