The young adult novel, Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret., was written by Judy Blume in 1970. No one ever told the main character, Margaret Simon, that 11 going on 12 would be such a hard age. Margaret must adjust to her new life in the suburbs, a new school, and a different group of friends when her family moves from New York City to New Jersey. She desperately wants to try to fit in with her new group of friends - Nancy, Gretchen and Janie, in their secret club. But her new friends talk about things that make her uncomfortable; boys, bras, and getting their first periods. However, Margaret doesn't think she is normal because she isn't developing as fast as her other friends. She realizes she needs someone to talk to about her life. She develops a private relationship with her own God, someone she can confide in throughout the book when things get tough. Margaret comments about this; "My parents don't know I actually talk to God. I mean, if I told them they'd think I was some kind of religious fanatic or something. So I keep it very private. I can talk to him without moving my lips if I have to. My mother says God is a nice idea. He belongs to everybody." Nancy's mother asks Margaret when she meets her if her mom will help with carpooling to Sunday school. Margaret replies that she doesn't go to Sunday school. Nancy tells her that everyone in town either belongs to the Y or the Center. Later that night Margaret talks to God, "By the end of the school year I'll know all there is to know about religion. And before I start junior high I'll know which one I am. Then I'll be able to join the Y or the center like everybody else." Throughout the book Margaret experiments with religion attending a Christian church with her friend, a Jewish temple with her grandma and sneaking into a Catholic confession box. After all of this Margaret says, "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 God? Why do I only feel you when I'm alone?"
I would like to connect Judy Blume's book to the literary work, "Disturbing the Universe," by Roberta S. Trites. Trites explains to the reader how "understanding the history of literature about adolescence can help us to understand not only how Young Adult literature came to exist but also what it’s ideological and aesthetic functions are." Adolescents as Trites explains are oppressed by their peers. They cannot break away and be individuals. We see this as Margaret joins her new friends secret club. If she wants to stay in the club she must not wear socks and begin to wear a bra. Trites talks about two different styles of Young Adult literature; the Bildungsroman and the Entwicklungsroman. As Margaret talks to her God she says, "I met a girl today. Her name's Nancy. She expected me to be very grown up. I think she was disappointed. Don't you think it's time for me to start growing God? If you could arrange it I'd be very glad. Thank you." This quote allows me to place this book under the Entwicklungsroman style of YA writing because it is "a novel of mere growth, mere physical passage from one age to the other without psychological development ... a novel of female development." YA novels focus on "social constructions, foregrounding the relationship between the society and the individual rather than focusing on Self and self-discovery as children's literature does.” Trites explains that all YA novels are “linked to issues of power.” In the case of Margaret the “power” is God. Margaret explores what type of power God plays in her own life and the lives of others surrounding her. She struggles with this conflict throughout the book considering her parents have no religious affiliation, she must come to her own conclusion about God. She tested the power she held when she told her grandparents that she will make her own decisions about God and which one she will believe in.
