Rating: 
Summary: a must read for mother and daughter
Review: I read this book and reviewed it for our Mother/Daughter Book Club. I have recommended it to many friends. Blume has a humorous and disarming way of presenting real-life issues in the lives of pre-adolescent girls. My daughter and I have enjoyed reading this book together and have had many meaningful and delightful conversations as a result of this book. I am particularly pleased with the way the issue of G-d and religious choice has been addressed. Our girls face many choices in their lives, some religion based and some not. Reading this book together has given my daughter and I yet another opportunity to discuss our committment to Judiasm as well as our moral and ethical beliefs and foundation. I can't wait for our mother/daughter book club discussion about this book!
Rating:
Summary: excellent book
Review: i read this book when i was young, about 10 or twenty times!
i loved it then and now. maragret felt just as i did and was afraid to admit alot of her feelings
i am going to by this book for my 11 yr. old daughter.
Rating:
Summary: A book that helped me through puberty
Review: I was given this book at age 10 or 11 and it helped me ALOT to deal with the changes going on in my body and mind. I'm saving it for my daughter who'll be ready to read it in a couple years. Parents: An excellent book to give your daughters(and sons!) to learn about puberty and REALISTIC reactions to it by a girl and her friends and family.
Rating: 
Summary: An unrealistic view of a sixth-grader.
Review: I read this book when I was in sixth grade and could not relate at all. Though my body was changing just like Margaret's, I did not find it to be nearly as exciting. The vast majority of girls in my class didn't do brainless things like making lists of boys they liked. Sure, there were boys we found appealing, but we didn't get together and talk about it ad nauseum like the PTS's. When we got together we did things like playing basketball and Battleship, like any non-neurotic eleven year olds would do. And a bra was just a normal thing that you could wear or not wear and no one cared. Also, any human being enrolled in elementary school cannot even come close to comprehending something as abstract as a God. Most adults can't even grasp it, so why should an eleven-year-old's relationship with a higher power be portrayed as so complex? This mediocre novel teaches pre-teen girls to be unnaturally over-dramatic about their changing bodies. I wouldn't be surprised if sixth-grade girls all over the country read it and laughed hysterically the whole way through.
Rating:
Summary: great pre-teen reading
Review: I had a little trouble with reading as a child, but after reading this book, I was so interested, I wanted to read it again. Young girls can really relate to this story first hand. It also may answer things that they may not want to talk about with anyone. I tell all you young friends to look for this book.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent!
Review: I read this as a young girl and have since recommended it to many friends with pre-teen daughters/nieces, etc. It made me feel like I wasn't the only one going through all that stuff - boys, bra's, periods, parties, etc. and it made me laugh. I read the book so many times, I broke the spine in a few places. I highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Are You There God? It's one good book
Review: I have read this book at LEAST five times and feel it has helped me deal with some of MY problems growing up. I am basicly a real live Margaret and recomend buying this book. It will be worth every penny. If you have or are a girl facing growing up and liking guys getting this book will help pull you through and make you laugh when you are down
Rating:
Summary: A Book to Help Any Girl Through Her Problems
Review: This is the story of Margaret Simon, a girl who just moved to a new town, and is trying to cope with the problems of becoming a teen-ager. Slowly, with encouragement from her mother, grandmother, and friends, she learns how to deal with boys and other growing-up problems
Rating:
Summary: A Fave Since Age 9!
Review: Judy Blume's writings were often deemed controversial. Oddly enough, Margaret's concerns placed this book, in the year 1970, under that label. Whether it be because of sex talk, periods, or Playboy references, this is a book that all preteens ought to read. Why? Margaret is a regular girl dealing with normal adolescent troubles. She's moved to New Jersey, she suspects, because her parents wanted to distance herself from her grandmother, who paid for Margaret's private school tuition, knit her cute little sweaters, and doted on her in a big way. Now, Maragret will go to public school. You can already see the transition to a new neighborhood won't be all too rough - she and Nancy Wheeler become fast friends and find they will be in the same sixth grade class. She, along with Nancy, Gretchen Potter and Janie Loomis, start the Four Preteen Sensations. Blume frankly addresses puberty, as well as religion. I like the fact that Margaret feels she can talk to God without actually belonging to any particular organized religion. She is technically half Catholic and half Jewish and a pivotal part of the book is her search to find which religion is right for her. She visits a synogague and a church, yet does not feel God in either place. This exploration of faith is actually something I have seen quite a few younger kids go through today in society - it really is no different from 1970! Margaret constantly wants her period. Why? I don't know. It will make her feel more grown-up, more womanly, I guess. Yes, I know, I know, I just answered my own question! :) Margaret also wants the body of a woman. She and her friends gossip about Laura Danker, a buxom sixth grader with a bad reputation, seemingly only because of her figure. Margaret wants breasts and goes bra shopping, only because the Four PTS girls are required to wear one as club rules - she doesn't even fill a double A. As some of the girls begin getting their periods, Margaret wonders when her time will come and we wonder if it will come during the 149 pages of the book. Blume captures the essence of the preteen age in this long acclaimed novel. Believable characters and a believable plot, as with other books of hers, will make this one enjoyable. Margaret asks herself questions that we ask ourselves everyday. She worries about the same things we worried about at her age - maybe even now. She has similar thoughts, concerns, and feelings and does not seem at all contrived or mechanical. This way, many will be able to relate with Margaret and her story.
Rating:
Summary: Tug of War over Religion
Review: Margaret Simon dreads leaving NY city to move to a town in NJ, where she will start in a new school. Making friends does not prove to be a problem after all, plus her entire 6th grade class
has to break in a brand new teacher. Still there are two underlying themes which cause her great concern: one is the slow growth of her body into maturity. She and the other Pre Teen Sensations obsess over filling their bras and getting their periods. (This book is definitely not of interest to boys.) The serious issue, however, is her dual religious heritage. The only chld of a Christian mother and a Jewish father, Margaret is a pawn in a tug of war on the part of her grandparents in the opposing camps. Her parents prefer to raise her to be Nothing--calmly assuming that she wil be able to make up her mind as a young adult without any guidance from either of them. Meanwhile Margaret carries on private conversations with God in her own mind, confiding to him as if by phone--begging him to reveal himself to her and reminding him to help her body mature. When
she has a big fight with God over a grandparent disaster, she stops talking to him. The author does not resolve Margaret's religious dilemma. How will she make up with God--if she still believes in him? There is also a more subtle theme about not believing vicious gossip about people you don't really know. Also a mild warning about the issues of pre teen posturing and snobbery. A good read if you are entering 6th grade.
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