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The first thing Margaret asks God is "Don't let New Jersey be too horrible," so you know she's in for a rough time with God. The second thing she asks for is boobs.

What makes Blume so wonderful - well, there are lots of things, but one of them is that she respects her audience, which is specifically 12-year-old girls and no one else. She's tackling big subjects here - puberty and God, so that's half of the entire list of Big Subjects - and she respects their difficulty. Margaret is the product of a mixed marriage - her mom is Christian and her dad is Jewish - and the big debate here is which God, if any, she will choose. Her parents have left the decision to her, which she feels is bullshit. "If I should ever have children," she declares, "I will tell them what religion they are so they can start learning about it at an early age. Twelve is very late to learn." And what I love is that by the end of the book, (view spoiler)[she's made no decision whatsoever. Blume doesn't offer pat solutions. She just presents the problem: (hide spoiler)] this is hard, isn't it? she says.

She does this throughout the book. Margaret's new best friend Nancy is a mean girl. Blume doesn't exactly tell you this, and there's (arguably) no character arc. She's just there, kindof a bitch. Blume drops hints that the sixth-grade teacher is harboring inappropriate feelings for early-developing Laura Danker, but she leaves it to the reader to decide how seriously to take them. Most dramatically, Margaret's maternal Christian grandparents arrive for a reconciliation, after disowning their daughter when she married a Jew. You expect some resolution; (view spoiler)[there is none. They suck. They offend everyone - "It's not too late for you, dear!" - and then leave, and that's the end of that. (hide spoiler)] This is hard, right?

But look, no one even remembers any of this shit. What you and/or your girlfriend remember about this book is that it's the first one that talked about boobs and periods, and this is why Judy Blume is one of the great heroes of literature: she takes growing up seriously, which is important because growing up is serious business. Blume doesn't talk down and she doesn't moralize. She wrote this way back in 1970, in the olden days when peoples' dads subscribed to Playboy magazine, and she's still one of the most because she dared to approach topics like periods. (And sex and masturbation and other marvelous things.) It's a seminal work for generations. My wife got all giddy with nostalgia when I told her I was reading it.

Which, like, I mentioned that Blume is writing solely for 12-year-old girls, and you might wonder what it's like for a 42-year-old man to read this. Probably not though, because literally who cares, but I'll tell you anyway: it's awkward. On the one hand, we enlightened men should be well past being freaked out by periods, right? And on the other hand, there's a heavy social taboo against adult men being in any way interested in training bras, and some of the reasons for it are good. Let's just say that I often label my Kindle so people on the subway can tell what I'm reading, and this time around I chose not to. And let's also reiterate that no one cares what I think about Judy Blume.

What matters is that, 50 years on, her voice is still clear, universal, non-judgmental, invaluable. "I wanted to be honest," she says. "And I felt that no adult had been honest with me. We didn't have the information we should have had." Here is the honesty and the information. God will not increase your bust and neither will as Judy Blume is in the most likable author interview ever. And New Jersey is horrible.

If you are a parent:
There's nothing objectionable in this book. I'm alert to dated gender roles and old-timey bigotry, a la the unfortunate "darkey" poem in Little House in the Big Woods, and there's nothing like that here. You're all good.

If you are a kid and your mom won't let you read this:
Your mom sucks. Read it under the covers with a flashlight, or whatever kids use for light these days. Welcome to literature.