Richard Jackson, publisher of Judy Blume, dead at 84

NEW YORK – The publisher of acclaimed children’s books by Judy Blume, Paula Fox and others has died. Richard Jackson was 84.

Simon & Schuster’s Children’s Publishing announced Monday that Jackson died Oct. 2. Additional details were not immediately available. Jackson was editorial director of Richard Jackson Books at Simon & Schuster.

Jackson’s career dated back to the 1960s, when he co-founded Bradbury Press. He would soon help transform children’s publishing by releasing Blume’s candid classic “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret,” a book both acclaimed and censored over the following decades. He also published such prize winners as Fox’s “The Slave Dancer” and Susan Patron’s “The Higher Power of Lucky.”

Jackson himself became a children’s author. His books included “In Plain Sight” and “Puddle.”