As part of its ongoing speaker series, the Friends of the Key West library will be welcoming best-selling author Judy Blume to the Key West Theater, 512 Eaton St., Monday, Jan. 25 at 6:00 p.m. Admission is free. Doors open at 5:30.

Blume has sold more than 85 million books, and her work has been translated into 32 languages. Her novels Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, Deenie, Forever, and Fudge, as well as several others, belong in the canon of young adult literature. Several of her works have been targets of book banning campaigns due to their frank and controversial (to some) portrayals of sex, sexuality, racism, childhood, and the human body. As a result she has become an outspoken voice against censorship and for intellectual freedom.

Her latest work, In the Unlikely Event, is her fourth novel for adults. It is fiction set against the background of real-life events, when a succession of airplanes crashed in her hometown of Elizabeth, New Jersey. But in her words, “It’s about how unlikely events can happen to us at any time and how they change our lives, and how when even tragedy strikes we go on.”

She and her husband George Cooper divide their time among Key West, New York, and Martha’s Vineyard. They are fixtures of many of Key West’s arts and cultural organizations.

For more information, go to http://friendsofthekeywestlibrary.org