Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.

Literary fiction

First published: 1970
Print length: 149 pagesMacmillan Books for Young Readers, 1990

Description

Eleven-year-old Margaret Simon leaves New York City for the New Jersey suburbs, where new friendships bring an urgent set of questions about fitting in and growing up. She joins a secret club whose members discuss boys, bras, and menstruation, and she worries that puberty is arriving for everyone except her. Her first crush adds another source of hope and embarrassment. At the same time, Margaret feels unsettled by her lack of a formal religion: her mother is Christian, her father is Jewish, and neither has chosen a faith for her. A school project leads her to visit different places of worship and examine what belief might mean personally. The novel joins bodily change, friendship, family, and spiritual uncertainty in one candid account of early adolescence.

Reading profile

About this profile

Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).

Writing: How much attention the sentences and language require.
Ideas: How much interpretation or abstract reasoning the book asks of you.
Structure: How much you need to keep track of speakers, timelines and connections.
Background knowledge: Prior knowledge needed to follow the book, beyond what it explains.
Emotional intensity: Emotional pressure, from gentle (1) to intense (5). Separate from difficulty.

Writing style

Conversational · Direct

Pace

Moderate

Tone

Humorous · Intimate · Reflective · Warm

Structure

Linear

Focus

Character · Ideas · Relationships

Emotional intensity

3 / 5

Reading complexity

1–5 · higher means more demanding

Writing: 2 / 5
Ideas: 2 / 5
Structure: 2 / 5
Background knowledge: 1 / 5

Themes

BelongingComing of ageFamilyFriendshipIdentityReligion and faith

About Judy Blume

Judy Blume writes fiction for children, adolescents, and adults, with a sustained interest in the private worries that accompany growing up. Her prose is direct and conversational, and she typically stays close to a young person’s partial understanding of family, friendship, sex, belief, and the body. Embarrassment and uncertainty emerge through ordinary exchanges and accumulating domestic incidents rather than elaborate plots. In Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, questions about menstruation, social belonging, and religion share the same scale because each bears directly on Margaret’s sense of herself. Forever... follows a teenage relationship through physical intimacy and separation, treating sex as an emotional and practical matter while allowing Katherine’s understanding of love to change. Blume also works in a brisk comic register. Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing builds its sibling rivalry from Peter Hatcher’s exasperated narration and Fudge’s escalating disruptions, while keeping Peter’s resentment and attachment in view. Her characteristic method is to respect childhood concerns by rendering them at full size, in language that remains clear, specific, and alert to awkwardness.