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Margaret Anne Simon, the narrator of Judy Blume’s engaging Tween 1970s novel, moves from New York City to Farbrook, New Jersey and learns more about being twelve than she bargained for.
Margaret is in 6th grade and she is an only child. This is Margaret’s first year in Farbrook, New Jersey and in the school she is going to.
Margaret’s best new friends are Nancy, Janie and Gretchen. They have a club called the Four PTS’s, which stands for Pre-Teen Sensations, which I think means they think they are fabulous. I don’t really agree with that because they’re not the most sensational girls on earth, they’re pretty normal. The club meets every Monday after school, and mostly they discuss a “topic” which I don’t feel comfortable talking about much less writing about, especially in front of boys. So from here on in, I will refer to this “topic” as “Dot.” What does “Dot” stand for you ask? All I can say is it’s something that starts happening to girls every month when they reach a certain age that is different for every girl but it usually happens between ages eleven and 15. Fine, I’ll say it once… menstruation.
Okay, now that I’ve admitted I’m uncomfortable writing about “Dots,” I realize I’m also kind of embarrassed talking about all of the physical changes that go along with “Dots.” Like the things that happen that make the PTS’s decide they will “All feel each other’s backs to make sure we’re wearing our…” I’m talking about a piece of clothing people! An undergarment! A Tiny Tank-top! You get the picture.
Anyway, about the TT’s Margaret says, “We all were.” (Wearing them.)
There is this girl in Margaret’s class named Laura Danker. Everybody is jealous of her including Margaret because Laura is pretty, tall and popular. Not only that, she looks like she actually needs to wear a TT unlike Margaret and her friends.
One day in the library when they are studying together after hours, Laura tells Margaret she’s not supposed to copy “word for word” out of the encyclopedia and Margaret gets so angry, she says a bunch of really mean things to Laura, like “I know all about you anyways…About how you and Evan and Moose go behind the A&P.” The A&P is a grocery store.
Again, I’m not very comfortable telling you what Margaret thinks they do behind there, but it’s kind of gross. Like too gross to ever imagine.
Laura gets really upset and tells Margaret it’s not true and Margaret believes her because she happens to know her friend Nancy, the one who told her that, is a liar because she lied about having her “Dot.” When Laura asks Margaret how she would like being the biggest girl in class, Margaret realizes that even though she thought Laura didn’t have any problems, she actually does, and it makes her feel really, really bad for being mean.
Margaret’s mom is Christian and her dad is Jewish. Margaret says, “I’m not any religion.” This is an interesting thing for her to say because she struggles with the idea of religion throughout the book and talks to God every night about the important things that happen to her during the day. Margaret’s friends, like her parents, are either Jewish or Christian. The Jews go to the Jewish Community Center and the Christians go to the Y. Margaret tries out different religions: she goes to Church and Temple and once, after being really mean to Laura Danker, she tries to go to confession, but she doesn’t feel God in any of those places. Margaret finally asks, “Why do I only feel you God when I’m alone?”
Margaret has only met her dad’s mom, Sylvia Simon, whom she loves because she’s fun and nice. Sylvia takes her to concerts at Lincoln Center and hand knits sweaters with tags that say, “Made Expressly For You…By Grandma.” When her mom sends a card to her parents, they send a letter back saying they are coming to visit. They have never met Margaret before and Margaret has never even seen pictures of them. It’s kind of like Margaret’s mom doesn’t have parents. Margaret gets really sad because they are coming the day she was going to fly on a plane, by herself, to see Sylvia Simon in Florida. Something she had been looking forward to for weeks, and now her trip had been canceled.
Margaret is really happy when Sylvia and her boyfriend come for a surprise visit after her mom’s parents leave. By the way, no one likes her mom’s parents because they are the exact opposite of Sylvia. They’re not nice or fun.
I really enjoyed this book. I would recommend this book to ages 10 and up. This book has some girl stuff in it so I wouldn’t recommend this book to boys. If boys liked this book review, there is a book by Judy Blume which is technically the same but for boys, called Then Again, Maybe I Won’t. The genre of this book is Realistic fiction. I would rate this book Five stars out of Five stars.
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