“I was telling this to Judy Blume,” says Naylor. Phyllis Reynolds Naylor at home in Gaithersburg, Md. Instead, her 10-year-old had checked out “ Lovingly Alice,” in which the protagonist figures out how babies are made. She received one letter that opened with “HOW DARE YOU?” The mom explained that she’d been planning, on her daughter’s 11th birthday, to sit down with the Bible and explain how sex was part of God’s plan to populate the Earth. I’ve had a lot of lot of letters from people saying, ‘Oh, my daughter doesn’t even know about that,’ and I can only think, ha-ha.”
“I think the fear is that the child is going to come to them and ask them questions that feel too personal,” she speculates. On this morning, she settles into the kitchen table - her formal dining room has been converted into a writing space - and considers why some people oppose her books. These are white-knuckle topics for parents, which helps explain how Naylor has landed on the American Library Association’s top 10 list of banned books so many times. The books in question are the “Alice” series, which, over the course of nearly 30 years and 30 titles, has dealt with menstruation, masturbation and the maturation, physical and emotional, of an average girl growing up in Silver Spring. “Butter?” Phyllis Reynolds Naylor offers, putting a fresh stick on a small saucer. Rowling - lives in a Methodist retirement community in Gaithersburg and makes dreamy blueberry muffins. The author whose works have been banned more than any other writer this past decade - more, even, than witchy J.K.
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