Are You There God? It's Me, a Voyage of Puberty and Religious Discovery

Another one down.  Man, these things just go down like lollies.

I'd like to start this in the same manner as I started the last post.  Do you know what I didn't remember about  'Margaret'?  I didn't remember that she had 'no religion'.  I completely forgot that the whole book is about Margaret's attempts to evaluate the two religions that her parents walked away from (Judaism and Christianity) when her mother's parents forbade their marriage, as well looking into any other religions she could access in her new hometown of Farbrook, New Jersey.  I think I may never have recognised the fact that she was praying to a 'God' despite having never experienced formal religion, which surprises me for one big fat reason: surely I identified with her.  I too grew up with no religion and I think early on, before I had a good understanding of just why I didn't believe in God, I may have sent a few requests skywards to a being I didn't believe in.  Despite that, I had no flickers of recognition as this plot unravelled to me once more.  What I DID remember was that mostly she was praying to her 'God' for bigger boobs and for her period to come... and that I certainly never understood and even at that early age put it down to cultural differences between Australian and American pre-teens.

Towards the middle of the book, it became clear that I had inadvertently blended Deenie's locker room experience with Margaret's 'downstairs toilet' experience, where indeed she was cheered and coerced to spend time in a room with a boy at a party.  I felt a little vindicated by this... and it also made me suspect that as an adult, the entire Judy Blume catalogue read in childhood (or young adulthood) becomes one big narrative from which incidences and not necessarily plots are recalled.  By way of example, 'we must, we must, we must increase our bust' is only said once in this book, and referred to one other time, but is this not the lasting image you took away from Are You There God, It's Me Margaret when you first read it?

In this book also, we maybe first met the archaic sanitary pad that attaches to some sort of belt... which I was thrilled to discover came in a nice girly pink.  I learnt that tampons were not recommended for young menstruaters.  That's actually something that this book and Deenie have in common: they both include a scene which is essentially just a personal development lesson experienced by the character and not so subtly transferred to the reader.  Deenie had a question and answer session that focussed on masturbation, and Margaret and her classmates watch an educational video on menstruation.  Judy Blume barely had to conceal her noble intentions under a plot for the message to get passed to me as a pre-pubescent reader, yet all wrapped up neatly as a lesson being taught to somebody else so as not to appear as a lecture.

Margaret turns twelve during the time scope of this story, and that is where all the boob and period stuff still really clangs for me.  One day, I am going to make friends with an American tween and ask her how she really feels about it, and I reserve my opinion until that day.  All I know is that I didn't want boobs, plucked out my first pubic hair and I thought getting my period was miserable.  Even though, according to the parents in Judy Blume's novels, it meant I was 'becoming a woman', I was pretty sure I was still a kid.

Special mention to Margaret's fantastic grandmother 'Sylvia Simon' for being the overbearing Jewish grandmother that I never knew existed until I was familiar with stuff like Seinfeld.

Also... these books get through some cover designs!  These last two posts have involved two of the more comprehensive Google Image searches ever undertaken.

Another 'also'... outsourced reading Superfudge to my lil pal (well... not outsourced, but he decided to get into the spirit) and was surprised/horrified to learn that recent editions have been modernised, with kids wanting laptops, mp3 players and CDs for Christmas.  Noting that here in case I forget when I get around to Superfudge.