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

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

First edition
Author Judy Blume
Country United States
Language English
Genre Young adult
Publisher Yearling
Publication date
1970
Media type Print
Pages 149 pp
ISBN 0-440-40419-3
OCLC 19882286
LC Class MLCS 2006/13809 (P)

Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. is a 1970 book by Judy Blume, typically categorized as a young adult novel, about a girl in sixth grade who grew up without a religious affiliation. Margaret's mother is Christian and her father is Jewish, and the novel explores her quest for a single religion. Margaret also confronts many other pre-teen female issues, such as buying her first bra, having her first period, coping with belted sanitary napkins (changed to adhesive sanitary pads for recent editions of the book), jealousy towards another girl who has developed a womanly figure earlier than other girls, liking boys, and whether to voice her opinion if it differs from those of her friends.

Plot summary

The main conflict in the novel comes from Margaret's need to settle her mixed religious heritage. She deals with her issues of belief in God, as the story is frequently interlaced with her praying by beginning with the title's words "Are You there, God? it's me, Margaret." In school, she is assigned a year-long independent study project; she chooses a study on people's beliefs, which proves to be more than she can handle as she is finding out a lot about herself as well. She also is dealing with conflict between her grandparents on both sides of her family, as her maternal grandparents are trying to guarantee that she is indeed Christian as she was born with a Christian mother. Margaret enjoys spending time with her paternal grandmother, who seems to accept her for who she is and is more accepting of her son's interfaith marriage, although she has referred to Margaret as "my Jewish girl" and introduced her to synagogue services for the purpose of showing her granddaughter what the Jewish faith entails, while her Christian grandparents claim her as a Christian. When her Jewish grandmother tells Margaret to remember that she's a Jewish girl, Margaret denies this and claims not to believe in God, which angers her grandmother. The ambiguities of her interfaith identity are particularly highlighted in a scene following a heated argument with another girl in which Margaret visits a church, finding her way to the confessional booth; there the unseen priest inquires as to her problems, but believing at first that the priest is God Himself speaking to her and not comprehending the concept of Christian confession or its confidential nature she simply responds "I am sorry," before running out of the church in tears.

Are you still there God? It's me, Margaret. I know you're there God. I know you wouldn't have missed this for anything! Thank you God. Thanks an awful lot...

Margaret moves from New York to the New Jersey suburbs, where she encounters Nancy, who leads her into a club where they talk about boys, bras, and periods. She becomes attracted to Phillip Leroy, a boy at school, and kisses him at a party while playing Two Minutes in the Closet (see Seven Minutes in Heaven)

Main characters

Awards

In 2010, the book was placed on Time's top 100 fiction books written in English since 1923 - ″Blume turned millions of pre-teens into readers. She did it by asking the right questions—and avoiding pat, easy answers.″.[1]

Subsequent book

Blume's success with Are You There God? It's Me Margaret inspired her to write another book, Then Again, Maybe I Won't, which is slightly like this book, but from a boy's perspective. This novel deals with Tony Miglione, a boy of the same age as Margaret who is dealing with puberty as well, although his transition from childhood to adulthood is quite different from Margaret's.

In popular culture

External links

See also

References

  1. Grossman, Lev (6 January 2010). "All Time 100 Novels". Time Magazine. Retrieved 21 January 2015.