Today's Topic - Cover Art
Received an email today alerting me to the re-release of Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. by Judy Blume. This book is only one of THE formative books of my growing up years, and you know, I will never be able to read it without thinking of the cover. My copy, read and reread, was the purple bordered one, with yellow haired, illustrated Margaret, looking out at me over her shoulder. Still, though, the copy I borrowed from a friend, and read BEFORE my mom gave my book to me, is the cover my friend Sue knows as "her" Margaret. After my Margaret years, many more faces looked out from covers, some individual "Margarets," some groups of girl friends. One cover, strangely, is just a bra, but now, stranger still, it is just feet! At first, this struck me as fun, in particular since Sue and I did a project last summer, taking a "foot picture" every day to chronicle life. But on further thought, I am a little sad. When you read Margaret, she becomes a part of you, an early fictional friend, and to only have her feet on the cover, well, it seems a bit limiting, and closed off, not giving you enough of the character.

So, with that in mind, I want to say "Thank you," to my yellow haired, black and orange 70's print dressed Margaret. Thank you for being a friend with a head. Thank you for letting me think I wasn't alone in the strange navigation of growing up. Thank you for being flat chested, and for a poem and exercise to help improve that fact...I think it worked! Thank you, Margaret, for a phrase that begins my own "talks with God" even at the age of 39. I knew you then, I know you now, and even if you are only willing to show your feet, I hope girls continue to know you for years to come. Goodness knows, Margaret, you are getting up there in years, just like me, and according to publishers, this new cover art should freshen you up. You know though, girl, you really need no freshening as you were given so much from the start, from your BRILLIANT creator, Judy Blume. It is always the author that is the key, so to end, Judy Blume, thank YOU. Thank YOU for my, and everyone's Margarets.