Judy Blume is one of America’s most beloved authors of children’s and young adult novels. Her books – “Tales of a Fourth-Grade Nothing,” “Blubber,” “Then Again, Maybe I Won’t” to name a few – have sold more than 80 million copies over the last half-century.

But Blume, who is also the subject of the documentary “Judy Blume Forever,” has largely resisted giving permission to filmmakers for adaptations… until now.

“Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret” is the classic tale of a pre-adolescent girl concerned with puberty and boys while also searching for meaning in life and coping with a move to the suburbs. The adaptation, which arrives in theaters on April 28, stars Abby Ryder Fortson, Rachel McAdams, and Kathy Bates. 

It was directed by Whittier native and UC Irvine alum Kelly Fremon Craig, who is equally excited about the idea that more films will follow.

“It gives me hope and joy that there will be more adaptations made, because no one should go through adolescence without Judy Blume,” Craig said in a recent video interview.

Growing up, Craig loved reading, and Blume’s “Forever” – forbidden fruit for sixth graders across the generations – was the first book she read in one sitting.

She also developed her filmmaking chops under the influence of MTV music videos. “I was running around Whittier with one of those huge old dinosaur video cameras with the whole VHS tape that goes inside and shooting music videos with my friends, trying to re-enact what we’d seen on MTV,” she recalled.

Craig’s first feature film was “The Edge of Seventeen” about a high school girl, played by Hailee Steinfeld, coping with the turbulence of teenage life. 

“I wanted to write things that made other people feel less alone,” she said of the throughline between that film and this new one. “I wanted to write truthfully about the experience of being a girl or a woman. I didn’t feel those experiences were being represented very often in film.”

Q. What drew you to adapt this book?

After I made “The Edge of Seventeen,” I was thinking about what came next and the authors that I loved. Judy Blume was the first person who came to mind, so I started re-reading all her work. 

Part of what makes her so incredible is that she writes with such brave honesty about all the little embarrassing details of life. There’s an electrifying honesty that feels a little scary

When I got to “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret,” I was bowled over. It was a childhood favorite and there were so many things that I recalled feeling when I read it at 11 but there were new feelings and discoveries reading it as an adult, in particular Margaret’s profound spiritual search, which I was oblivious to when I was 11. 

There’s something beautiful about the way the uncertainty of adolescence makes you start to ask those larger life questions. It’s logical – everything is changing, your body is changing and you’re not quite a child but not quite an adult – that you start reaching out for a sense of something solid

Q. Early in your career, you’d sold some screenplays that didn’t get made or were made but were heavily rewritten. Was that difficult to accept?

As a young screenwriter starting out, it’s very easy not to trust your own instincts because you’re around people who have so much more experience than you. Instead of having your own compass, you write while thinking “What would so-and-so think is good,” which is death to creativity.

I grew very frustrated. One movie was made I went to the theater and didn’t recognize it. After seeing my work put on the conveyor belt and moved through the meat grinder, I had a moment where I said, “I think I’m done.” Then a friend said, “Just give it one more shot and write something just for you. And that was “Edge of Seventeen.” 

Q. Was it easier to get your second movie made because of the success of that film?

That one was hard to get backing for because I was a first-time director and a young female director, and it was a subject matter – about an adolescent girl – that people did not have a ton of desire to make.

I cannot explain the dramatic difference between 2016 and today and a lot of that has to do with #MeToo. There was a huge cultural shift and suddenly the industry went from making it seem like they were taking a big chance on a female director telling female stories – that was seen as a liability – to today where there’s more of a spirit of celebrating those stories and women telling them. We still have a ways to go but we’ve come a long way. 

Q. But first you had to persuade Judy Blume to let you adapt it so you wrote her a very persuasive letter. 

I knew she had not let a lot of her books get made into movies, but I didn’t know she was starting to open up her material to be adapted but had said the one she absolutely would not adapt was “Margaret.”

My letter had two parts. First, I told her how much her work meant to me and how when I made “Edge of Seventeen” she was always in the back of my mind. I was trying to make a film that would make people feel the way her books made me feel, which is to say, understood and less alone.

Then I talked about re-reading “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret” and how it knocked me flat and made me sob. I spent days trying to figure out why and came to realize it’s about this kid’s spiritual search and how that will continue for her. It was about asking questions that aren’t usually talked about in movies and that have no easy answers.

Q. The film is largely faithful to the book. What changes did you make?

Re-reading the book I was interested in the adult characters who I never noticed when I was 11. There were certain seeds in the book about her mother being a square peg in a round hole when they move to the suburbs that I started to tease apart. A lot of those ideas came out of my own personal experience of motherhood, about being the type of mom you want to be while also wanting to have a career doing something you love. A lot of times I feel like I’m doing one but neglecting the other. It’s not easy and there’s a lot of guilt involved. Giving Barb this arc is my own therapy

Q. Did you consider switching it to present day or wonder how modern girls will relate to something set in 1970?

I was curious about how things had changed and interviewed a bunch of 11- and 12-year-old girls. Aside from social media, there wasn’t a ton of difference in what they went through. There was still that real awkwardness about talking about bras and periods and it all just feels familiar.

There’s something to be gotten out of watching someone go through this 50 years ago knowing it’s something your mom and grandma went through – it’s a connection that’s reassuring.