Blume’s puberty classicAre You There God?
It’s me, Margaret.
We’re moving today.
Credit: Dell Yearling; Atheneum Books for Young Readers
I’m so scared God.
I’ve never lived anywhere but here.
Suppose I hate my new school?
Suppose everybody there hates me?
kindly help me God.
Don’t let New Jersey be too horrible.
The subject of religion is taboo in the Simon household.
“My parents don’t know I actually talk to God,” Margaret explains.
So I keep it very private."
This moment in particular hit me right in my grown-up-lady heart:
I’ve been looking for you God.
I looked in temple.
I looked in church.
And today, I looked for you when I wanted to confess.
But you weren’t there.
I didn’t feel you at all.
Not the way I do when I talk to you at night.
Why do I only feel you when I’m alone?
ThoughAre You There, God?
and worries that she’ll be the last of her friends to get her period.
Yes, I asked.
Per their spokesperson, “It is indeed a coincidence.")
He pinches Margaret’s arm and cracks, “That’s a pinch to grow an inch.
And you know where you need that inch!”
Damn right, missy!
Thank you, Judy Blume, for teaching me that God doesn’t give with both hands.
Freed utters perhaps the wisest words in the entire book.
“You always believe everything you hear about other people?”
It’s the opposite of a parental lecture, but orders of magnitude more effective.
“Now I am growing for sure,” she thinks.
“Now I am almost a woman!”
But who am I kidding?
Even 50 years on, God knows that hasn’t changed.
