Jocelyn Schneider

Dear Judy Blume,

I read your book last year.  I loved Are You There God?  It's Me, Margaret.  I read it when I moved to Johnston last summer.  The book really help me cope with all the changes going on in my life.

I liked that your book was so funny.  Margaret didn't know it, but the way she narrates the story makes me laugh.  It made me feel better about moving away from my friends and my life back in Colorado.  When Margaret moved, she made new friends and tried new things like religion.  It inspired me to try new things too.  I started cheerleading and now it has turned out to be one of my most favorite things in the world.  I also started going to church with a friend, just to experiment a bit.

In your book, Margaret is also dealing with becoming a teenager.  It's embarrassing to say, but I'm a late bloomer so the same things were happening to me while I read Are You There God?  It's Me, Margaret.  Sometimes Margaret feels left out because her friends are all grown up, wearing bras, and going to boy/girl parties.  She just wants to be like everybody else.  I move a lot and I've always been the smallest one in my class so I can relate to Margaret's problems.  It's not about the short jokes and the playful teasing but sometimes, I feel that people don't take me seriously.  When I ask them what their first impression was of me they say things like "Wow, that girl is short!" or "She looks like a little kid."  I'm fourteen years old, and I don't want to hear things like that.  Now I understand how Margaret feels when her friend Nancy makes her feel so left out when they have their secret meets at the PTS club.

In the end, Margaret's childhood days are over and all her questions are answered.  It's been the same way for me.  I was worried when I moved here but now, I don't know what I was getting so worked up about!  I felt like as Margaret grew up, so did I.  I realized that change could be a good thing.

Yours truly,
Jocelyn Schneider