Judy Moody is now popular all over the world, and I think she’s translated in about 15 or 20 languages, and some of them, it’s kind of difficult since her name rhymes, “Judy Moody.” Some of the translation is a challenge but in some languages she’s Judy Moody, but in other languages, I think in Dutch or something, she might be “Hanja Humorek”, and there’s “Fleur Humeur,” and my favorite, I think it’s Serbian. She’s “Cocka Focka.” Kids in particular like the sound of that name.
I don’t quite know why Judy’s popular all over world, except to say that I think she’s such a universal character, I think it just sort of strikes a chord, that kids all over the world identify and relate with Judy. There’s certainly a lot of very American things in the books, but I know as a reader myself, that’s always fun for me, to read a book that has a setting in another country, or where there’s a kid who’s speaking in British slang, something that they may not know.
It does represent some really funny challenges. For example, I’ll get a call saying, “What does ‘cooties’ mean?” In another language, they don’t have cooties. They don’t know. They’re saying, “Well, is it lice?” I’m like, “Well, not exactly.” Some of the issues that come up in the translation are really funny. In the first book, I had all the time where Judy was giving this poison ivy stare. Well, the books are finished in Australia, and they don’t have poison ivy there, and they don’t know what it is so we had to take some of those references out. It’s just really interesting to see how that plays out in different languages.