Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret

Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret Summary | Plot Summary

Eleven-year-old Margaret Simon has just moved to the suburbs and wants to be like everyone else. When she is confronted with body and religious issues, she struggles as she tries to conform. Not only does she learn about religion and puberty, she also learns how to view other people.

Margaret Simon and her parents, Barbara and Herb, move from New York City into a house in Farbrook, New Jersey. Margaret thinks part of the reason for the move is to get away from her grandmother, Sylvia Simon, who lives in the city. A neighbor girl in Margaret's class, Nancy Wheeler, invites Margaret to her house. Through talking with Nancy's mother, Margaret reveals she does not go to Sunday school. At the house, Nancy invites Margaret to be in her club, and Margaret meets Nancy's brother Evan and his friend Moose who offers to cut the Simons' grass. Herb refuses until he has a lawnmower accident and has to hire Moose. Margaret develops a crush on him. Margaret enters sixth grade and has Mr. Benedict for a teacher. In a class survey, Margaret reveals she does not like religious holidays.

Margaret goes through the school dance and a classmate's party where the boys and girls play kissing games. Her other classmates, Janie Loomis and Gretchen Potter, are part of Nancy's club called the Four Preteen Sensations. They make rules where they have to wear bras, keep and reveal Boy Books of boys they like, and tell each other who gets her period first. The girls look at naked pictures in an anatomy book and Playboy magazine. As the leader, Nancy gives them advice and tells them about an exercise to increase breast size. Margaret convinces her mother to go bra shopping, and she gets training bras. While shopping, Margaret sees Janie and her mother. Sylvia stays in Margaret's life by visiting, calling, writing, and sending presents.

When the girls ask Margaret what her religion is, Margaret has to explain how her mother's Christian parents rejected her after she married a Jewish man, and that Margaret's parents raised her with no religion. Because of the girls, Margaret feels pressured to find a religion. Mr. Benedict tries to talk to her about her religious problems, but she does not tell him anything. She uses a school project to go on a religious quest, which includes Jewish temple, Methodist, Presbyterian, and Catholic churches. She never settles on a religion and tells Mr. Benedict this in a letter. She concludes that she would want her own children to have a religion early in their lives. A menstruation film at school has the girls talking about periods, and Margaret is obsessed with getting hers. Margaret is upset when Gretchen and Nancy get their periods, although Margaret later learns Nancy lied.

After Barbara makes contact with her estranged parents during Christmas, her parents decide they want to visit, which cancels Margaret's trip to Florida to visit Sylvia. Margaret experiences upheaval as her maternal grandparents and Sylvia try to convert her to their religions, Christianity and Judaism, respectively. She learns about judging when she argues with Laura Danker, who Nancy say is the "loose" girl in the class. After the fight with her grandparents, Margaret acts out by purchasing sanitary supplies at a drugstore even though she does not need them. Nervous, Janie does not go along with her. Throughout the book, Margaret talks to God and asks him for things. After her religious upheaval, Margaret stops talking to him but resumes when she gets her period.