The Judy Blume Book Club - Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret
This is another of the Blume books that I have strong childhood memories of - and it's also the one that people commenting have mentioned most often as one which is memorable, and important.
Like Tony Miglione in Then Again, Maybe I Won't, Margaret Simon's story is about moving from one neighbourhood to another, juxtaposing the transition of puberty with a transition into an unfamiliar place, where friends and rituals have to be built up from scratch.
Like the other Blume books I read this month, Margaret deals with the relationship between a child and her parents, showing that odd period when children/teenagers realise their parents are human, and start building a world view of their own, separate from those of their parents. Margaret is a very cynical twelve year old, whose sense of identity is strongly founded on the story of her parents' marriage, which happened against the will of both their sets of parents, because of religious differences. When she moves, Margaret discovers that being 'no religion' is more of a big deal than it was back in the city, and this starts her thinking about her parents' resolution that she could "choose a religion for herself". She has regular conversations with God, but has never really thought about which God she is talking to, until she takes on that question as a special school project. Her exploration includes making her Jewish grandmother incredibly happy by going to Synagogue with her, comparing this experience to attending church, and witnessing some of the damage done to her own family by religious differences.
At the same time, Margaret is dealing with becoming a girl on the verge of becoming a teenager. She is drawn into a group of girls who have "secret meetings" to talk about boys, bras, periods... and lie through their teeth to each other, all pretending to be more confident and experienced than they are. Margaret spends most of her time with these girls worrying about what they think of her - she writes down the boys she is supposed to fancy, lies when she sees one of her friends shopping for bras at the same time that she is, and fights jealousy when the other girls get their period first. The shallow teen obsession with appearance rather than honesty is seen elsewhere in the book - with the girls' horrible attitude to the girl in their class who has "developed early" (and thus is classified as a slut), and the way that the class geek is suddenly viewed in a new light when his parents allow him to put on an extravagant party for the other kids. In one climactic scene, Margaret discovers that Nancy, the bold and confident friend that Margaret has been lying to impress, has also been lying to impress the other girls.
It was this latter aspect of the book that resonated with me when I was younger, which I remembered most clearly, and oddly, which resonated with me again. That feeling of being so unsure about everything, and desperately hoping no one knows what a fraud you are, pretty much sums up how I felt for my whole teenagehood (god, would NEVER go back there, not if you paid me...) and Blume captures it without resorting to exaggeration or false drama.
There's a reason that, when I think of of Judy Blume books, Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret is the first book that comes to mind. A real classic.
Like Tony Miglione in Then Again, Maybe I Won't, Margaret Simon's story is about moving from one neighbourhood to another, juxtaposing the transition of puberty with a transition into an unfamiliar place, where friends and rituals have to be built up from scratch.
Like the other Blume books I read this month, Margaret deals with the relationship between a child and her parents, showing that odd period when children/teenagers realise their parents are human, and start building a world view of their own, separate from those of their parents. Margaret is a very cynical twelve year old, whose sense of identity is strongly founded on the story of her parents' marriage, which happened against the will of both their sets of parents, because of religious differences. When she moves, Margaret discovers that being 'no religion' is more of a big deal than it was back in the city, and this starts her thinking about her parents' resolution that she could "choose a religion for herself". She has regular conversations with God, but has never really thought about which God she is talking to, until she takes on that question as a special school project. Her exploration includes making her Jewish grandmother incredibly happy by going to Synagogue with her, comparing this experience to attending church, and witnessing some of the damage done to her own family by religious differences.
At the same time, Margaret is dealing with becoming a girl on the verge of becoming a teenager. She is drawn into a group of girls who have "secret meetings" to talk about boys, bras, periods... and lie through their teeth to each other, all pretending to be more confident and experienced than they are. Margaret spends most of her time with these girls worrying about what they think of her - she writes down the boys she is supposed to fancy, lies when she sees one of her friends shopping for bras at the same time that she is, and fights jealousy when the other girls get their period first. The shallow teen obsession with appearance rather than honesty is seen elsewhere in the book - with the girls' horrible attitude to the girl in their class who has "developed early" (and thus is classified as a slut), and the way that the class geek is suddenly viewed in a new light when his parents allow him to put on an extravagant party for the other kids. In one climactic scene, Margaret discovers that Nancy, the bold and confident friend that Margaret has been lying to impress, has also been lying to impress the other girls.
It was this latter aspect of the book that resonated with me when I was younger, which I remembered most clearly, and oddly, which resonated with me again. That feeling of being so unsure about everything, and desperately hoping no one knows what a fraud you are, pretty much sums up how I felt for my whole teenagehood (god, would NEVER go back there, not if you paid me...) and Blume captures it without resorting to exaggeration or false drama.
There's a reason that, when I think of of Judy Blume books, Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret is the first book that comes to mind. A real classic.