Nor are we at the day where we can let it pass without noting that this entirely delightful movie features a little girl as its protagonist. Which means, alas, that it will probably be mostly little girls, hauling along their American Girl dolls, who will go see it. And that should not be. There’s no reason why, if little girls are perfectly capable of enjoying the adventures of Harry Potter, little boys shouldn’t be capable of enjoying the adventures of Kit Kittredge... and I hope parents will expose their sons to this, because they might learn a few things about perseverance, friendship, kindness, and generosity. And we can never, even as adults, get too much of that brand of warm gentleness.

Abigail Breslin (Definitely, Maybe, Little Miss Sunshine) is spunky and adorable here, though not in that annoying, overly precocious way of sitcom kids, as Kit, a nine-year-old living in Cincinnati in the early 1930s, just as the Great Depression is really revving up. The privations of the larger world don’t impinge much on her little realm, which encompasses school and her treehouse and her grand desire to be a newspaper journalist. Until it does, when her beloved father’s (Chris O’Donnell: The Company, Kinsey) car dealership goes under and he is forced to leave town to look for work, and Kit and her mother (Julia Ormond: I Know Who Killed Me, Animal Farm) are compelled to take paying lodgers into their large and rambling home just to pay to the mortgage.

And so what starts out as a semi-serious little adventure tale morphs gradually into sweet comedy, as the array of borders unfolds into a comic ensemble that includes Joan Cusack’s (Martian Child, Chicken Little) librarian, Stanley Tucci’s (The Devil Wears Prada, Robots) stage magician, and others. In fact, by the end, I’m tempted to call the whole shebang practically Little Rascals-esque, as Kit and her friends investigate the mystery of the “hobo crime spree” that has been dogging Cincinnati and the surrounding area. I wouldn’t have predicted that the charming and low-key dramedy of the open segment of the film would have evolved into the silly chases of the end, but it’s not an unpleasant road to have gone down. Small children will certainly be more enthralled than adults, but it’s no chore at all to bear witness to Kit’s resourcefulness and ingenuity, and I even laughed more than once (don’t tell anyone).

Alas that some children -- and adults -- may feel the sting of recognition in more ways than one here, as family homes get foreclosed upon and belts tighten more than comfort will grant. Who’d have thought that stories of the Great Depression would feel actually relevant and pertinent again? But there’s no question that the universality of Kit Kittredge’s compassion and easygoing highmindedness is a soothing balm to counter its underlying harshness, and that the movie leaves us feeling not downhearted to see history repeating itself, but uplifted to see that even the smallest among us are undeterred from remaining true to our ideals even when times are tough.