Timeless Thursdays: Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume

I still remember my copy of Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume from when I was a girl. It had a purple cover and a picture of a blonde girl. I loved, loved, loved this book, and I would talk about it with all my friends.

“Oh my God,” I would say. “Did you read the part about her period?”
“Yea,” my friend would say. “Have you gotten your period yet?”
“No,” I would say. “Have you?”

Margaret and Judy Blume have allowed girls everywhere to talk to their parents, teachers, and friends about their time of the month. She made it okay. She made it cool, and she still does.

Nowadays, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret doesn’t have a purple cover with an illustration of a girl. The copy I checked out from the library (to refresh my memory before I wrote this blog) has a photograph of a young brunette girl, pretty with straight hair, looking up at the sky. The background is blue with white clouds, and it’s modern and classy. The one from the Amazon link here is also modernized, but it’s different from the library bound copy.

With all the recent discussion about the cover of Liar, it got me thinking about the covers of many books that I read as a child and how publishers are putting new, modern covers on them to appeal to today’s readers. What do you think about this?

It personally doesn’t bother me. And as a matter of fact, I like many of the new, modern covers better. I don’t like it when book publishers misrepresent characters like in the case with Liar. But I know how covers do affect people’s book choices. They affect mine. Do they affect yours? And they definitely affect kids’ choices.

So, if there’s a new modern cover on Judy Blume’s timeless tales, who cares? If children are still reading and learning from them or relating to the characters, then that’s what’s important. In my opinion, anyway. What about yours?