Margaret is trying to figure out where she fits in the world. Her parents decided to move to New Jersey, so she had to give up her bedroom in their Manhattan apartment and the school her grandmother had paid for. She has a new bedroom and a new school, a public school, and she doesn’t know if she’ll fit in. But then Nancy shows up at her new front door and invites Margaret to run under the sprinklers with her. And just like that, Margaret has a new friend.

On the first day of school, Margaret meets her new teacher—a first-year teacher named Mr. Benedict, and she gets into Nancy’s secret friend group with Janie and Gretchen. They talk boys, bras, school, and getting their periods.

At home, Margaret gets along okay with her parents. And she adores her grandmother. She used to spend more time with her grandmother, when they lived in the city, but her grandmother finds ways to visit and to get Margaret back to the city. But when Margaret is alone and feeling sad or confused or hopeful, there is only one person she turns to. She prays.

Margaret doesn’t go to church or synagogue. Her father is Jewish and her mother is Christian, and they didn’t want to pressure her to follow either religion. They thought it would be best for her to choose when she gets older. When Mr. Benedict says he wants everyone in the class to pick a topic to study all year long, she chooses religion. She tries going to temple with her grandmother and tries a couple of churches with her friends. She reads books about religion, and she hopes to find answers that feel real to her.

But as the school year goes on and she faces pressure from her friends and challenges at school, she starts to feel like she’s getting left behind. She’s one of the last of her friends to develop, and she feels like her prayers are going nowhere. Will she figure out who she wants to be before she finishes sixth grade, or will she get left behind?

Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret is a classic novel of growing angst for girls. I read it when I was a kid. All my friends read it. Everyone read it. It’s still a classic today, thanks to the timeless voice of author Judy Blume. Margaret is the perfect reflection of every girl’s fears as she grows up and starts to compare herself with the other girls in her class.

I loved this book as a kid, and every so often I pull it back out to read again. It never gets old, never gets stale. It is a little dated, like a snapshot of New York City in the 1960s, but Margaret’s feelings, her insecurities, her struggles are the same for all girls everywhere. Every girl should read this book, several times, and share it with all their friends, daughters, nieces, and granddaughters.