PUPILS should be encouraged to read Judy Blume’s classic teen novels about tender sexual awakenings, according to Michael Gove.
Gove slammed teachers for telling students to read ‘transient vampire novels’ rather than the ‘transcendent teen classics’ like 1975 coming-of-age tale Forever.
He said: “Judy Blume’s work is timeless, it’s deeply emotional and also biologically educational.
“It’s so well written that when I first read Forever I actually felt I was a teenage girl, nervously touching a boy’s erect penis for the first time.
“The main character, Katherine, is in the middle of her senior year at high school, with all the social pressure that entails.
“But then she meets a boy and together they embark on a sensitive discovery of adult physicality. Yes it’s mildly erotic but only in the most appropriate way.
“However the fatal twist comes when Katherine meets another, older, boy while doing a summer job and thus the stage is set for a classic love triangle.
“The male lead, coincidentally also called Michael, calls his member Ralph which incidentally inspired my own name for my reproductive organ.
“The book really stayed with me and I still re-read the best bits to this day. The rest of the Blume canon is good too, especially Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret and Then Again, Maybe I Won’t.
“I also think Sweet Valley High is amazing.”
