This article is from New York Magazine's Top 10 Films of 2008, December , 2008

Kit Kittredge: An American Girl

It opened poorly against a Will Smith superhero picture and was largely shrugged off as a merchandising tie-in. But Patricia Rozema’s tale of an adolescent girl (a luminous Abigail Breslin) who, at the height of the Depression and amid widespread foreclosures, sets out to be a journalist and document the struggles of homeless families, is both enchanting and haunting. And as she learns to see the world with new eyes, Kit becomes one of the great contemporary role models for kids.