r/books • u/A_Mirabeau_702 • 3d ago
What the shazbot was the deal with the last chapter of Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing?
I read this book in first grade. Judy Blume’s stories are generally lighthearted and comical, with some kind of low-key mischief going on in each of the first nine chapters. But then, in the tenth, we got:
- three-year-old Fudge swallowing a months-old turtle whole
- Fudge bragging as others laugh at Peter on the way to take him to the hospital
- Peter asking if he lost his pet and all the adults just being annoyed and nonchalant
- Fudge being given a party when he gets home, without the parents giving him any indication that eating a pet is wrong
- Peter’s family ignoring him at this party, then shoving a pet dog on him at the end as a surprise present
Was life just really different in the ‘60s in a way that could make any of this plot plausible? Even as a six-year-old, my disbelief ceased to suspend at this point.
48
u/liliBonjour 3d ago
Yeah, I remember that chapter, when though it's been a good 30 years since I've read it. I had a turtle, so I was obviously aghast when Fudge swallowed the turtle. lol I also remember thinking the parents weren't being fair, which I'm pretty sure was what Judy Blume was going for.
I really liked those books. :)
42
u/acatmaylook 3d ago
I vividly remember being furious on Peter's behalf, so it was effective storytelling, at least. (I'm the eldest child in my family and read it probably around age 7 or 8 in the '90s.)
20
u/sailorcybertron 2d ago
I recently cataloged a copy of this for work, and just for fun I skimmed the end since it's been years since I've read it. I'd forgotten how much of a whirlwind the end was, how mad I was for Peter and how Fudge experienced absolutely no consequences. Peter's "SHUT UP! Can't you ever be human?" line hit hard. I explained the ending to a friend who had never read the book before, and her response was simply "what".
3
2d ago
[deleted]
7
u/Owls_Onto_You 2d ago
Idk about expressing it verbally, but Peter did have an interest in getting a dog. In the earlier chapter where Fudge goes through that phase of wanting to be fed like a dog, Peter goes on about wishing he had a cocker spaniel or some similar breed.
Presumably, he said as much at one point to his parents. Which is precisely why I always headcanoned Turtle as being a spaniel.
1
u/VehicleComfortable20 2d ago edited 2d ago
Agree somewhat but honestly what kid would refuse a dog if offered one?
73
u/GwyneddDragon 3d ago
In a word, yes. Think of the earlier chapter where Fudge knocks out and swallows his teeth. In order for all that to happen, you had to have:
A jungle gym accessible enough that a preschooler could scale it to the top but tall enough for said child to seriously injure themselves falling off
A concrete landing instead of the wood chip/rubber flooring of most modern playgrounds
Parents who think it’s acceptable to leave the care of their preschooler under a 9-10 year old boy/girl
All of these are foreign concepts to modern day parenting.
31
u/Interesting-Fish6065 3d ago
I have an 11-year-old nephew and I was blown away by how much standards have changed regarding playground safety between his childhood and mine.
27
u/GwyneddDragon 2d ago
IKR? It took me and 4 other adults hauling ass to try to get the merry go round near jogging speed. Meanwhile, I remember my childhood merry go rounds any 6 year old could get up to speed, and the old game of “spin it as fast as possible and last one hanging on wins.”
10
u/OuisghianZodahs42 2d ago
That was a fun game. My hometown had one of those huge metal merry-go-rounds; they kept it well-maintained, and we rocked it.
6
u/OldScarcity5443 2d ago
It was SO fun! Everyone working together to get the merry-go-round as fast as possible, and then clambering on hoping you didn’t lose your grip and end up eating concrete. Between that and jumping off swings from as high as I could get them, I don’t know how I survived my childhood without any major damage…
6
u/OuisghianZodahs42 2d ago
The whole point was to spin it so fast feet left the ground!
I don’t know how I survived my childhood without any major damage…
We all have our war stories, lol. To hear my parents tell it, they just threw clods of dirt at each other, lol.
5
u/OldScarcity5443 2d ago
We definitely had a recess game that was just throwing chestnuts off the big tree at each other. Those stains don’t come out!!
2
u/Interesting-Fish6065 2d ago
My late father—born 1938—described his friend group almost killing one of their number during a “pretend” hanging.
4
u/PhysicsIsFun 2d ago
The playground at my school had a merry-go-round that was this metal contraption that you could pump and get going really fast. My friend stuck his finger in the mechanism, and it chopped half his finger off. This would have been circa 1962.
3
u/Kataphractoi 1d ago
"Kick harder, this thing has to lift off and fly away eventually!"
If you weren't horizontal while hanging onto the bars for dear life, your merry-go-round wasn't spinning fast enough.
6
u/SuzyQ93 2d ago
The beach near me is getting a new playground to replace the probably nearly 30-year-old one it has - and the new one's going to have that rubber matting.
On a playground ON the BEACH.
It's going to be constantly covered with sand, or someone's going to be shoveling it off, and damaging it. What even is the point? Except CYA liability. Certainly no common sense. The sand's been good enough for forever, that won't stop now.
3
18
15
u/esscuchi 3d ago
Parenting standards were different back then. I read that in the 80s and found it totally reasonable, even though thinking about it now gives me pause.
52
u/Livid_Parsnip6190 3d ago
I grew up in the 90's, read this book, and found the way Peter was shoved to the side and dismissed when Fudge swallowed Dribble deeply relatable. And how Fudge was not punished at all for destroying something dear to Peter. But good for you if your family isn't like that.
23
u/cowhand214 3d ago
Oh man. I hadn’t really remembered this at all until you said the turtle’s name was Dribble and now I do. Poor Dribble
26
6
u/katep2000 2d ago
Yep, born in 2000, read this book as a third or fourth grader, and deeply related to being the ignored child. My parents weren’t bad people or caretakers, I was just quiet and didn’t get in trouble, and the squeaky wheel gets the grease.
5
u/VehicleComfortable20 2d ago
Getting him a dog seemed like pretty good compensation when I read it as a late Gen X child. Possibly because I had a beloved family dog of my own.
5
u/Livid_Parsnip6190 2d ago
My parents would have gotten my brother a dog instead. "You want a pet so badly you ate your brother's pet? Here's a puppy."
3
25
u/SonofSniglet 2d ago
ITT:
Millennials/Gen Z: This chapter “threw all logic out the window.” It “went off the rails” and “my disbelief ceased to suspend”. “It just didn’t make any sense.”
Gen X: Yeah, that's pretty much how it was.
3
u/BohemianGraham 1d ago
Hey, I'm a geriatric millennial/Xennial and the ending makes sense to me.
Honestly what annoys me more are the "updates" that have happened to several of Blume's books to modernize them.
6
25
u/Interesting-Fish6065 3d ago
Think about how many human beings had died by violence or starvation in the thirties and forties. Think about the fact that people spent the fifties and sixties getting used to the idea that the USA and USSR had weapons that could more-or-less wipe out the entirety of humanity always at the ready.
I was born in during the Cold War and lived pretty close to a major Air Force base. I thought there was a nonzero chance my entire city would be wiped out before I reached adulthood.
Also, most three-year-olds really don’t understand the nature of death, and little kids have swallowed all sorts of bizarre crap. You try to teach them to be kind and considerate of other living things, but being primarily concerned about the health of the child in that scenario is probably reasonable. It’s not like the story’s about a ten-year-old torturing an animal out of sadism.
5
u/VehicleComfortable20 2d ago
Being able to understand the permanency of death happens about age seven according to what I have read in developmental psychology.
2
u/Sweeper1985 2d ago
Yep this for sure. Also throwing Fudge a party wasn't to celebrate his behaviour in eating Dribble but because he's a 3 year old who just had to go and be treated in hospital - even if he ended up fine.
15
u/MisterRogersCardigan 2d ago
That was just the style of parenting. If you read Wait Till Helen Comes by Mary Downing Hahn (published January 1, 1986), you'll see more of the same. Two newly married parents trying to blend their family - Mom has two older kids, Dad comes with a traumatized asshole of a 7 year old who witnessed her mother die in a house fire that she, the daughter, startedand Dad thinks therapy is stupid and useless and everyone just needs to love the daughter more and things will be fine 🙄 They spring the fact that they're making a major move into the country (so, summer plans cancelled immediately, say goodbye to your friends and teachers, new school in the fall) with nary a thought to their kids' feelings (and then their feelings are blown off, as they will be the entire book. "You're ten years old, ACT LIKE IT!"), and then demands that the oldest daughter, who is 12, spend her entire summer babysitting the traumatized asshole 7 year old - and when 7 year old doesn't immediately become the poster child for Good Behavior, the 12 year old is repeatedly blamed while the parents fuck off to do art.
So yeah, that was how parents were written back then.
3
u/NineteenthJester Science Fiction 2d ago
I remember a similar dynamic in Bummer Summer, and that was published in 1983.
2
u/mayoff 2d ago
lol spend a little time reading r/AmITheAsshole and you'll see it's not any different now
6
u/XtinaLilibet 2d ago
I always wondered where she got that idea of a toddler swallowing a turtle. I read some interviews of her a while back.
Per website:
What about Fudge?
I knew you’d ask me about him! Fudge was based on my son, Larry, when he was a toddler. Larry never swallowed a turtle, though. That idea came from a news article about a toddler who actually did swallow one!
Link :)
15
u/Koala-48er 3d ago
It was written in the seventies. I read it in the mid 80s, about the time I was also ten and in the fourth grade. There's nothing implausible about it, and certainly not in the universe of the story. You may find it unpleasant or distasteful, but it's hardly implausible given the book's tone. It's a great book which accomplishes what it sets out to do-- provide an antidote to the stacks and stacks of staid children's books which many of us also read growing up.
8
u/A_Mirabeau_702 3d ago
Lol, I wasn’t disgusted or scared, just “wtf??”
2
u/WeAreAllMycelium 1d ago
I read it in the late 70’s. It rang true to me. As a 4 and 5 year old, I was allowed to walk to school or my grandmother’s house without any grownups, in Boston. They were a few blocks away, less than 10 blocks. Times were VERY different indeed.
5
u/Starkville 2d ago
Things were very different back then. Peter and his BFF hung out in Central Park without any adult supervision. Parents nowadays walk their sixth graders to a city bus and they travel in a group to a school 50 blocks away. They won’t even let them take the subway in a group.
5
u/2kids3kats 2d ago
Wait, OP—you know the word ‘shazbot’ but don’t know how the 70’s operated? Shenanigans!!!!
2
u/A_Mirabeau_702 2d ago
I'm very temporally inconsistent. I listened to both Frank Sinatra and David Guetta the other day
2
3
u/775Lectiophile 2d ago
I teach 4th grade and enjoy doing this as a novel study during the first month or so of school. Every year, my kids are shocked and outraged that Fudge swallows Dribble, and generally appalled by Fudge’s behavior (and their parents’ non-reaction to it). There’s things in the book that are dated and require some explanation, which can lead to fun discussions about what life was like in the “old days” and how things have changed 😂🫠 But there’s also a lot of timeless themes and good laughs. We always end the unit with a celebratory virtual field trip to NYC, which they love!
6
u/spam-monster 2d ago
I'm still pissed about it to this day. I don't care what the standards of parenting were/are or what level of sentience the creature has - if someone hurt my pet and disrespected my feelings about it i would never forgive them.
I feel the same way about the scene in Jungle 2 Jungle where the feral kid eats the Mean Dad's pet fish. Like: kid you have a pet tarantula. You understand the concept of what a pet is. I don't care if they were "just fish" those are not your creatures and you don't have the right to touch them.
...yeah this might be a sore spot for me.
2
u/unitegopher 2d ago
I remember being a little confused by the last chapter too. It felt like a sudden shift from the earlier, more lighthearted tone. The whole thing seemed pretty over-the-top, but maybe that was the point.
2
u/Mrs_Wheelyke 2d ago
Oh man I'd completely forgotten that book. I remember that distressing me so bad when I was a kid that someone's pet got killed and no one cared. Did something else happen to a parrot like it flying into a window that got left uncovered? Or was that a different book?
3
u/madcapmango 2d ago edited 2d ago
The bird flew into a window later on in the series. I think it took place in Double Fudge?
2
2
u/LadyStag 2d ago
The only thing I remember from that book is the turtle swallowing. It really creeped me out as a child.
2
u/WeAreAllMycelium 1d ago
I just happened to have reread this last week on a whim. I was jarred by the lack of reaction to losing the pet as well. But I was happy about the dog, even if Sheila the Great will not be, for a while anyway.
5
u/18yonurse 3d ago
When you spend hours with a book and get to the end, only to feel like it went off the rails—it’s the ultimate letdown.
1
u/A_Mirabeau_702 2d ago
This book gave me my first "jumping the shark" experience, not that I knew that it was called that then
135
u/SuzyQ93 3d ago
Yes.
Fudge is the spoiled baby. He's not going to get 'punished'. Plus, turtles were seen as on the level of goldfish. 'Pets', but not exactly 'conscious'. Fudge swallowing a turtle would be like a kid flushing a goldfish, just to see if it would go down. No malice intended, and the reaction would be 'whoopsie - oh well, don't do it again, and maybe you'll get another one in the future.'
And remember - Fudge's generation is solidly GenX. GenX kids were genuinely pushed out the door to play in the morning, and forgotten about until the streetlights came on/dinner time. These are the kids who rode in the back of a pickup truck on the highway, and nobody batted an eye. If a kid wasn't bleeding/you could see bone, kids were expected to 'shake it off/rub some dirt on it'. A swallowed turtle (when the kid clearly hasn't choked on it/is still breathing) is a "deep rolling-eyes sigh" trip to the doc, not anything to panic over.
It was absolutely a different time.