Judy Blume’s seminal ‘Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.’ remains universal

Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret., the movie adaption of Judy Blume’s iconic coming-of-age novel starring Rachel McAdams, Kathy Bates, and Abby Ryder Fortson as Margaret, is so faithful to the book, snippets of the story came rushing back to me as I watched the preview.

But I wasn’t experiencing Margaret as a 9-year-old girl whose body was on the cusp of change; I was watching the story unfold through the lens of a 49-year-old, perimenopausal woman who remembers what it was like to be anxious about her developing body. I now know the desperation Margaret felt as she chanted, “We must, we must, we must increase our busts,” with her homegirl crew. And I remember how scared I was the first time I finally got my period, despite having prayed so hard for it to come.

Margaret is the most seminal of Blume’s 29 books, however, I devoured all her other novels from Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing to the teen love story Forever (raise your hand if you passed it around, steamy scenes dog-eared). Blume wrote about tweens’ emerging sexuality decades before tween was a term, when such things — especially when told from a girl’s perspective — were taboo. Blume was brave, and her impact on young adult fiction is lasting.

Now, Blume’s earliest fans, finally in the position to green light projects at major studios, are ushering in a Judy Blume renaissance, introducing her work to a younger generation. Amazon Prime will release a 97-minute documentary about the author’s life, Judy Blume Forever on April 21. The documentary features commentary from actors Molly Ringwald, Lena Dunham, and young adult writer Jacqueline Woodson, who all credit Blume with their frank storytelling. Margaret opens in theaters April 28. Netflix has ordered a limited series based on Forever that will be directed by Mara Brock Akil and centered on Black teenagers. And Liz Tigelaar, showrunner for Little Fires Everywhere, is reportedly working on a limited series based on Blume’s 1998 novel, Summer Sisters for Hulu.

Blume is becoming amenable to on-screen adaptations. “She’s open now. She’s open to sharing her work,” said Marcella Steingart, a producer on Blume’s Amazon documentary. “She trusts they will treat it with care. She can see we are moved by it, have a personal stake in it.”

I know I do. I’m grateful to Blume. She’s a major reason why Generation X women had an easier time talking about our bodies than our mothers. We led discussions about period poverty and period shame. Blume’s work was a precursor to shows that explored women’s sexuality like HBO’s Sex and the City and CW’s Girlfriends. It’s not surprising that Gen X women — like Tracee Ellis Ross, Naomi Watts, and Drew Barrymore — are leading conversations demystifying perimenopause and menopause.

Interest in Blume is timely as young adult novels like Philadelphia-based author Kacen Callender’s Felix Ever After, about a transgender teen grappling with their identity, are increasingly banned in conservative school districts across the country. Several of Blume’s books were banned in the 1970s and 1980s, including Margaret. In fact Blume went toe-to-toe with conservative commentator Pat Buchanan in 1984 on his talk show, Crossfire, about a passage in Blume’s Deenie that discusses masturbation.

“It’s shocking, shocking that this was going on just as if time stood still and we are back in the 1980s,” said Blume, who is now 85, in Judy Blume Forever.

Just like the book, the film version of Margaret is set in the 1970s, a simpler time, when children rode yellow cheese buses to school and little girls wore plaid dresses on the first day of classes. Margaret moves from her tiny Manhattan apartment to suburban New Jersey with her parents, Barbara and Herb (McAdams and Benny Safdie), leaving her beloved grandmother Sylvie (Bates) in the city. She starts sixth grade at a new school and becomes friends with girls who pressure her to be more mature.

All of girls in the novel are white. I grew up in Queens, N.Y., in the 1980s in a neighborhood white families like Margaret’s left. Still, I related to Margaret because just like the girls in the book, my friends formed secret clubs, snuck peeks at our dads’ girlie magazines — how else were we to know what grown-up bodies looked like? — and looked up the word “sex” in the encyclopedia, searching for a definition we could understand.

“Books that were written about girls at the time were fluffier and neater,” said Megan Jackson, a young adult librarian at the Free Library of Philadelphia. “Judy Blume wrote so matter-of-factly, capturing how cruel and uncertain the world could be for teenage girls.”

The movie succeeds in inclusivity where the book fails. Margaret’s teacher, Miles J. Benedict, who encouraged Margaret to examine her relationship with God, is played by Echo Kellum (Arrow), who is Black. One of Margaret’s besties, Janie Loomis, is played by actress Amari Alexis Price.

There is a montage in Margaret where the girls get dressed up for a classmate’s dinner party. Janie, who wears her hair in two adorable Afro-puffs, gets her hair pressed straight with a hot comb for the occasion. A small detail, but a big acknowledgment to Black women who read Blume growing up.

“Margaret is universal,” Jackson said. “Blume explores a very complex and emotional landscape in terms that all kids could relate to. That’s why Margaret still holds up so well.”

In other words, all children — whether they are from a smartphone generation or not — know what it’s like to be bullied, or not feel good enough.

The cool thing about the Judy Blume resurgence is that we’re learning so much about her. We were intimately familiar with Margaret; Peter, Fudge’s exasperated older brother; and Linda, the chubby girl who was teased in Blubber. But what made Blume tick was a mystery to us — much like our parents.

Blume was born Judy Sussman and grew up in New Jersey with a mom who she had a hard time talking with and demanded perfection from her. In high school, Blume struggled with fitting in. She went to NYU, where she met her first husband, and married in 1959 while she was still in college. Blume’s two children, Randy and Larry, were born when she was in her early 20s. (She’s been married three times.)

She published her first book, The One in the Middle is the Green Kangaroo, in 1969. Margaret, Blume’s first young adult novel, was published the following year. Blume’s daughter, Randy, inspired it, but it was Blume’s skill at recalling her own childhood moments with authenticity that made Margaret a literary success.

“She can literally time travel back to that feeling of being a kid,” Steingart said. “She taps into those feelings and those details with such honesty, and she’s so prolific.”

Blume has sold more than 82 million books across the young adult and adult genre.

Over the years, Blume has received thousands of letters from young fans. She was always seeking to connect with readers, counseling some and becoming their friends.

I never wrote to Blume, but I felt connected to her, too. She’s the reason I kept a journal, and wrote and illustrated my own children’s books as a preteen and teen. I always knew Blume inspired my writing. Now I understand why.