Judy Blume was long resistant to a film adaptation of her beloved 1970 novel Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.
Now in the fifth decade of a career spent reimagining what fiction for children and young adults could be, the author worried that the story — which has endured across three generations of readers — would be mishandled and the 11-year-old girl at its centre misunderstood.
After a meeting with director Kelly Fremon Craig and veteran producer James L. Brooks, who had previously teamed up for 2016’s The Edge of Seventeen, Blume finally saw a vision worth greenlighting. Hallelujah. Are You There God? It’s Me,
