Blubber is a good name for her, the note from Caroline said about Linda. Jill crumpled it up and left it on the corner of her school desk. She didn’t want to think about Linda or her dumb report on the whale just then. Jill wanted to think about Halloween.
But Robby grabbed the note and before Linda stopped talking it had gone halfway around the room.
That’s where it all started… there was something about Linda that made a lot of kids in her fifth grade class want to see how far they could go… but nobody, Jill least of all, expected the fun to end where it did.
But Robby grabbed the note and before Linda stopped talking it had gone halfway around the room.
That’s where it all started… there was something about Linda that made a lot of kids in her fifth grade class want to see how far they could go… but nobody, Jill least of all, expected the fun to end where it did.
This is a story about bullying.
Jill Brenner is in the fifth grade; and at the beginning of Blubber she is in class listening to her classmates presenting projects on mammals. The last person to present that day is Linda Fischer, who Jill says is the pudgiest girl in the class (but not in the grade). Linda is doing her project on whales, which is why Wendy decides to start calling her ‘Blubber’. She passes a note around class and Linda has a new nickname before her presentation is even over.
Just like that, Linda becomes the official outcast of the class. Everyone in class, including Jill, does their best to make Linda’s life miserable. They call her Blubber, never Linda; they trip her; take her things; make her call herself Blubber; and they constantly tease her about her weight, among other things. There’s even an incident where Jill, Wendy, and Wendy’s best friend Caroline corner Linda in the bathroom and school and try to strip her.
No one seems to like Linda very much; especially Jill, who always blames Linda when things go wrong for her. The classroom teacher is completely unaware as to what is going on, and the bus driver on the school bus Linda, Wendy, Caroline, Jill, and some other classmates ride just ignores what happens.
I can’t really say that this book has a direct plot. It’s like Judy Blume wrote what happened during about a month-long period in Jill’s life and it just so happened that there was bullying going on at the time. The bullying isn’t even always talked about. Jill talks about things like Halloween, costumes, stamp collecting, Jill’s best friend and her family, her own family, what’s going on in her home, and so on. Most of the book is actually this. While there’s no set plot, there is a specific chain of events that leads to an ‘end’ to the bullying.
It starts on Halloween night. While out trick-or-treating, Jill and her best friend Tracy Wu play a prank on a mean man named Mr. Machinist who lives on Linda, Wendy and Caroline’s street (they cracked rotten eggs in his mailbox). They’re almost caught and they end up getting their picture taken by Mr. Machinist as they’re running away. Actually, they get away completely when they crack the eggs; they’re only caught when they return to show Wendy and Caroline what they did. So the only ones who know what happened are Wendy, Carolin, and Linda (who saw them outside from her window).
At first, this seems like something random that happens that has no bearing on the rest of the story, but then Mr. Machinist goes around town with the picture he took of Jill and Tracy to try to identify the two girls, who were in full costumes with masks at the time. He somehow does figure out who they are and the two girls are punished.
We never do learn who told. Tracy suspects Wendy, but Jill blames Linda. She reasons that it’s Linda trying to get back at Jill for the bullying since Linda kind of threatened to get back at her. Jill tells Wendy and Caroline about her theory, and Wendy agrees with her but says that they really need to find out the truth. They eventually decide to put Linda on trial to get her to confess. They spend a while planning out the whole trial, but they aren’t able to actually do it until a few days later.
Linda misses a few days of school, but she comes back on a rainy Wednesday. Lunch recess is held indoors, so as soon as the teacher leaves for lunch the class gangs up on Linda and locks her in the classroom’s supply closet. Wendy declares herself the judge, Jill is the prosecution, and the rest of the kids are the jury. Wendy is about to start the trial when Rochelle, who Jill tells us is a new girl, points out that they can’t have a trial because they didn’t give Linda a lawyer. Rochelle insists that Linda needs a lawyer and Wendy pitches a fit.
Wendy, who is basically in charge of the class (the Queen Bee, if you will), starts getting pissy because things aren’t going her way. Jill, probably finally realizing that Wendy is a horrible person, goes against Wendy for the first time all book and agrees with Rochelle that Linda needs her own lawyer. She ask that Rochelle act as defence, and Rochelle accepts.
Wendy continues to resist deny Linda a lawyer until Jill finally calls off the trial and lets Linda out of the supply closet. Wendy is very angry with Jill now, and tells her that she will be sorry.
The next day Jill arrives at school to find that she has suddenly switched places with Linda. Linda now has her name back and seems to be Wendy’s new BFF. Jill has become the class’ new official outcast and everyone, including Linda, now refers to her as B.B., or Baby Brenner. Jill has now become Blubber.
However, Jill handles things a little differently than Linda did. Jill tries to keep things from getting to her and showing her classmates that they can’t hurt her. It all comes to a head when Jill is cornered in the bathroom by Wendy, Caroline, Donna, and Linda. They try to make Jill insult herself before being allowed to use the bathroom. When she refuses, Wendy tries to get the other girls to pull Jill’s pants down. (What is it with those girls and taking off clothes? They did the same thing to Linda near the beginning of the book.)
Jill knows that she can’t fight against the girls, one of whom is bigger than her, so she tries a different way of getting away. She questions Caroline’s best friend status with Wendy and when it comes out that Wendy isn’t exactly a very good best friend, Caroline and Donna leave the bathroom.
Jill’s bullying stops immediately after that, kind of like Linda’s seems to have. Caroline and Donna become new best friends, Wendy turns to a girl named Laurie, Jill starts hanging out with Rochelle, and Linda is alone again. Things in class seem to have gone back to normal and Jill’s life outside of school remains largely unaffected.
I think that this is my favourite book by Judy Blume, just because of the ending. I’ve known people to say that they don’t like this book because it seems like the characters don’t learn the right lesson, or any lesson. That’s the exact reason why I love it so much. I sometimes get frustrated when I read books where everyone, even the enemies, is BFFS-Forever by the end. I rarely see that happen in real life. There’s nothing wrong with everyone being friends in the end, I just don’t like it. Can’t people just be allowed to hate/dislike each other in children/YA books?
Anyway thank you, Judy Blume, for telling it like it is.
So, I wanna talk about Jill. Jill is in the fifth grade, in a classroom with a hierarchy. Wendy is at the top of that hierarchy, she’s calling the shots. She’d also the one that starts all the ‘Blubber’ business. Jill is somewhere in the middle of the hierarchy… as long as she stays on Wendy’s good side. She even says it herself; it’s not a good idea to cross Wendy.
Anyway, back to Jill. Jill is the one narrating the story, so she’s the character we get to know the most. Jill lives on a very short street with her parents and younger brother Kenny. Her family is pretty normal, and Jill is a very normal girl; which is why it should come as a surprise to no one that she also participates in bullying Linda. Judy Blume is pretty good at writing realistic children.
Jill joins in on the bullying partly because everyone else is doing it, and partly because she can. Jill doesn’t seem to particularly like Linda, even after all the bullying stops. She doesn’t even sympathize with Linda when she’s put into her position. I don’t think that Jill really even gives much thought to Linda or her situation.
If Jill has learned any lesson here, it’s to stand up to people like Wendy. It’s a pretty solid lesson, but not the lesson most people would expect from this kind of story.
On the other side of the coin is Linda. Linda is probably the ideal bullying victim: she’s quiet, shy, lonely, and it’s easy for people to walk all over her. She doesn’t seem very likable or sympathetic, probably because she can be whiny and she’s quick to join in on bullying Jill (at least, that’s why I don’t like her). Wendy initially starts bullying her about her weight, but Jill even tells us that Linda may be the pudgiest girl in the class but that there are two other girls in the fifth grade who are bigger; and then there’s a boy in the class who is bigger than all three. Jill talks about that boy every now and again, but when she mentions his weight it’s not really insulting, it’s just observations.
The bullying in this book is pretty bad. I mean, you have the standard stuff like name-calling and playing keep away with possessions. Then you have the really extreme stuff like trying to remove clothes, and locking someone in a closet. And all this from a bunch of fifth graders! It’s a good thing this story takes place before social networking sites happened. I can imagine the dark turn this story would most likely take if someone like Wendy had access to anonymity online.
Speaking of places in time, the copy of Blubber that I have says that this book was originally published in 1974, so this story must take place in the ‘60s or ‘70s. Having said that, this book doesn’t read like something that happened almost 40 years ago. I was reading this and picturing my own elementary school experience, which was in the late ‘90s/early 2000s. Blubber doesn’t really date itself, except for mentions of Unicef collection on Halloween (does that even happen anymore?) and someone writing a check for a dollar.
All in all, I really like this book. It’s a very simple story about bullying and how hateful some children can be. The bullies aren’t very complex: they aren’t children with tortuous home lives who bully because they’re taking things out on the wrong people, they’re just ordinary children who are mean and bully because they can get away with it. There really isn’t a strong anti-bullying message here, but I don’t think that’s what Judy Blume was going for. She was just out to tell a simply story about elementary school bullying; and I think she succeeded.
Jill Brenner is in the fifth grade; and at the beginning of Blubber she is in class listening to her classmates presenting projects on mammals. The last person to present that day is Linda Fischer, who Jill says is the pudgiest girl in the class (but not in the grade). Linda is doing her project on whales, which is why Wendy decides to start calling her ‘Blubber’. She passes a note around class and Linda has a new nickname before her presentation is even over.
Just like that, Linda becomes the official outcast of the class. Everyone in class, including Jill, does their best to make Linda’s life miserable. They call her Blubber, never Linda; they trip her; take her things; make her call herself Blubber; and they constantly tease her about her weight, among other things. There’s even an incident where Jill, Wendy, and Wendy’s best friend Caroline corner Linda in the bathroom and school and try to strip her.
No one seems to like Linda very much; especially Jill, who always blames Linda when things go wrong for her. The classroom teacher is completely unaware as to what is going on, and the bus driver on the school bus Linda, Wendy, Caroline, Jill, and some other classmates ride just ignores what happens.
I can’t really say that this book has a direct plot. It’s like Judy Blume wrote what happened during about a month-long period in Jill’s life and it just so happened that there was bullying going on at the time. The bullying isn’t even always talked about. Jill talks about things like Halloween, costumes, stamp collecting, Jill’s best friend and her family, her own family, what’s going on in her home, and so on. Most of the book is actually this. While there’s no set plot, there is a specific chain of events that leads to an ‘end’ to the bullying.
It starts on Halloween night. While out trick-or-treating, Jill and her best friend Tracy Wu play a prank on a mean man named Mr. Machinist who lives on Linda, Wendy and Caroline’s street (they cracked rotten eggs in his mailbox). They’re almost caught and they end up getting their picture taken by Mr. Machinist as they’re running away. Actually, they get away completely when they crack the eggs; they’re only caught when they return to show Wendy and Caroline what they did. So the only ones who know what happened are Wendy, Carolin, and Linda (who saw them outside from her window).
At first, this seems like something random that happens that has no bearing on the rest of the story, but then Mr. Machinist goes around town with the picture he took of Jill and Tracy to try to identify the two girls, who were in full costumes with masks at the time. He somehow does figure out who they are and the two girls are punished.
We never do learn who told. Tracy suspects Wendy, but Jill blames Linda. She reasons that it’s Linda trying to get back at Jill for the bullying since Linda kind of threatened to get back at her. Jill tells Wendy and Caroline about her theory, and Wendy agrees with her but says that they really need to find out the truth. They eventually decide to put Linda on trial to get her to confess. They spend a while planning out the whole trial, but they aren’t able to actually do it until a few days later.
Linda misses a few days of school, but she comes back on a rainy Wednesday. Lunch recess is held indoors, so as soon as the teacher leaves for lunch the class gangs up on Linda and locks her in the classroom’s supply closet. Wendy declares herself the judge, Jill is the prosecution, and the rest of the kids are the jury. Wendy is about to start the trial when Rochelle, who Jill tells us is a new girl, points out that they can’t have a trial because they didn’t give Linda a lawyer. Rochelle insists that Linda needs a lawyer and Wendy pitches a fit.
Wendy, who is basically in charge of the class (the Queen Bee, if you will), starts getting pissy because things aren’t going her way. Jill, probably finally realizing that Wendy is a horrible person, goes against Wendy for the first time all book and agrees with Rochelle that Linda needs her own lawyer. She ask that Rochelle act as defence, and Rochelle accepts.
Wendy continues to resist deny Linda a lawyer until Jill finally calls off the trial and lets Linda out of the supply closet. Wendy is very angry with Jill now, and tells her that she will be sorry.
The next day Jill arrives at school to find that she has suddenly switched places with Linda. Linda now has her name back and seems to be Wendy’s new BFF. Jill has become the class’ new official outcast and everyone, including Linda, now refers to her as B.B., or Baby Brenner. Jill has now become Blubber.
However, Jill handles things a little differently than Linda did. Jill tries to keep things from getting to her and showing her classmates that they can’t hurt her. It all comes to a head when Jill is cornered in the bathroom by Wendy, Caroline, Donna, and Linda. They try to make Jill insult herself before being allowed to use the bathroom. When she refuses, Wendy tries to get the other girls to pull Jill’s pants down. (What is it with those girls and taking off clothes? They did the same thing to Linda near the beginning of the book.)
Jill knows that she can’t fight against the girls, one of whom is bigger than her, so she tries a different way of getting away. She questions Caroline’s best friend status with Wendy and when it comes out that Wendy isn’t exactly a very good best friend, Caroline and Donna leave the bathroom.
Jill’s bullying stops immediately after that, kind of like Linda’s seems to have. Caroline and Donna become new best friends, Wendy turns to a girl named Laurie, Jill starts hanging out with Rochelle, and Linda is alone again. Things in class seem to have gone back to normal and Jill’s life outside of school remains largely unaffected.
I think that this is my favourite book by Judy Blume, just because of the ending. I’ve known people to say that they don’t like this book because it seems like the characters don’t learn the right lesson, or any lesson. That’s the exact reason why I love it so much. I sometimes get frustrated when I read books where everyone, even the enemies, is BFFS-Forever by the end. I rarely see that happen in real life. There’s nothing wrong with everyone being friends in the end, I just don’t like it. Can’t people just be allowed to hate/dislike each other in children/YA books?
Anyway thank you, Judy Blume, for telling it like it is.
So, I wanna talk about Jill. Jill is in the fifth grade, in a classroom with a hierarchy. Wendy is at the top of that hierarchy, she’s calling the shots. She’d also the one that starts all the ‘Blubber’ business. Jill is somewhere in the middle of the hierarchy… as long as she stays on Wendy’s good side. She even says it herself; it’s not a good idea to cross Wendy.
Anyway, back to Jill. Jill is the one narrating the story, so she’s the character we get to know the most. Jill lives on a very short street with her parents and younger brother Kenny. Her family is pretty normal, and Jill is a very normal girl; which is why it should come as a surprise to no one that she also participates in bullying Linda. Judy Blume is pretty good at writing realistic children.
Jill joins in on the bullying partly because everyone else is doing it, and partly because she can. Jill doesn’t seem to particularly like Linda, even after all the bullying stops. She doesn’t even sympathize with Linda when she’s put into her position. I don’t think that Jill really even gives much thought to Linda or her situation.
If Jill has learned any lesson here, it’s to stand up to people like Wendy. It’s a pretty solid lesson, but not the lesson most people would expect from this kind of story.
On the other side of the coin is Linda. Linda is probably the ideal bullying victim: she’s quiet, shy, lonely, and it’s easy for people to walk all over her. She doesn’t seem very likable or sympathetic, probably because she can be whiny and she’s quick to join in on bullying Jill (at least, that’s why I don’t like her). Wendy initially starts bullying her about her weight, but Jill even tells us that Linda may be the pudgiest girl in the class but that there are two other girls in the fifth grade who are bigger; and then there’s a boy in the class who is bigger than all three. Jill talks about that boy every now and again, but when she mentions his weight it’s not really insulting, it’s just observations.
The bullying in this book is pretty bad. I mean, you have the standard stuff like name-calling and playing keep away with possessions. Then you have the really extreme stuff like trying to remove clothes, and locking someone in a closet. And all this from a bunch of fifth graders! It’s a good thing this story takes place before social networking sites happened. I can imagine the dark turn this story would most likely take if someone like Wendy had access to anonymity online.
Speaking of places in time, the copy of Blubber that I have says that this book was originally published in 1974, so this story must take place in the ‘60s or ‘70s. Having said that, this book doesn’t read like something that happened almost 40 years ago. I was reading this and picturing my own elementary school experience, which was in the late ‘90s/early 2000s. Blubber doesn’t really date itself, except for mentions of Unicef collection on Halloween (does that even happen anymore?) and someone writing a check for a dollar.
All in all, I really like this book. It’s a very simple story about bullying and how hateful some children can be. The bullies aren’t very complex: they aren’t children with tortuous home lives who bully because they’re taking things out on the wrong people, they’re just ordinary children who are mean and bully because they can get away with it. There really isn’t a strong anti-bullying message here, but I don’t think that’s what Judy Blume was going for. She was just out to tell a simply story about elementary school bullying; and I think she succeeded.
