It's Not the End of the World

Author Q&A

Judy Blume talks about writing
It’s Not the End of the World

When I wrote It’s Not the End of the World in the early seventies I lived in suburban New Jersey with my husband and two children, who were both in elementary school. I could see their concern and fear each time a family in our neighborhood divorced. What do you say to your friends when you find out their parents are splitting up? If it could happen to them, could it happen to us?
At the time, my own marriage was in trouble but I wasn’t ready or able to admit it to myself, let alone anyone else. In the hope that it would get better I dedicated this book to my husband. But a few years later, we, too, divorced. It was hard on all of us, more painful than I could have imagined, but somehow we muddled through and it wasn’t the end of any of our worlds, though on some days it might have felt like it.

Divorce laws have changed since I wrote this book. You don’t have to go to Nevada or anyplace else to be divorced these days. And unlike Karen’s mother in this book, many women have jobs outside the home, regardless of whether or not they’re married or have children. Not that new laws or having two working parents makes divorce easy. It still hurts. It still causes the same fears and feelings Karen experiences in this story.