Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret

Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret is Judy Blume's 1970 coming-of-age novel about eleven-year-old Margaret Simon, who moves with her parents from New York City to the New Jersey suburbs and navigates the anxieties of the sixth grade. Margaret and her new friends form a secret club, the Pre-Teen Sensations, where they share worries about growing up, bras, boys, and the wait for their first periods. At the same time, Margaret, the child of an interfaith marriage between a Jewish father and a Christian mother, is raised without a religion of her own and quietly carries on a running, one-sided conversation with God as she tries to figure out where she belongs.

Two threads run through the book: the ordinary but intense experience of female puberty, and Margaret's private search for faith and identity. Through a school assignment she explores different religions, visiting a synagogue and churches, while tension with her devout Christian grandparents and her estrangement from her more secular grandmother press her to decide who she is. Blume treats menstruation, developing bodies, and religious doubt with a frankness that was unusual for children's fiction at the time, giving voice to feelings many young readers recognized but rarely saw in print.

The novel became one of the most beloved and influential children's books of its era, praised for its honesty and warmth and named a New York Times Outstanding Book of the Year in 1970. Its candor also made it a frequent target of censorship, and it appears often on lists of challenged books. Its lasting reach was underscored by a 2023 feature film adaptation. Judy Blume has said the story poured out of her and that Margaret brought her first and most loyal readers.