Those of us who are over forty, apparently. One wonders what those of us over seventy were up to—not living through the Depression, I guess. But presumably septuagenarians aren't using the internet, and so do not count. Or perhaps they're all dead; it's a very difficult sentence to parse.

Is this really film criticism? What seems to come out of Zacharek's review is the cultural feminist apologist's notion that if it's about a little girl and in the interest of her education then we must overlook the sentimentality and inherent classist, racial, and gender assumptions. How else can the use of the word 'inept' to describe a female director's filmmaking be part of fawningly positive review?

Is this movie a sign of the end of filmmaking as a genre? It was once a revolutionary marketing idea to create figures to represent characters from a film. We are now at the stage when films are based on figures. Would the reviewer be as forgiving when the Bratz live action movie comes out, marketed in the same way to the same targeted age group?

I don't understand the american girl series, but I sincerely doubt its accuracy in describing the lives for young women in the various timeperiods. After all would a loomoperator doll, sharecropper doll, or an immigrant scullery doll sell today?

And for a reviewer to posit that it's possible that boys could read stories about young girls, and in fact should, that are exclusively and specifically marketed to young girls seems to represent the cultural feminist notion of the superiority of all things female. This is however the kind of blinding assumption that one can expect from a writer whose first paragraph of a film review is all about her own life growing up as a young girl. The writer's own nostalgia for a young girl dreaming one day of becoming a writer, herself, gets muddled with the writer's own selfimportance and how, it seems, the life and priorities of a fictional girl parallel the petty concerns of the writer, herself. The main character is given her first big break at the age of nine by a newspaper editor! This is girl empowerment on steroids and is beyond the ability to suspend belief. Yeah, I can think of a few reasons why young boys don't read the book series if this movie is representative of the stories therein.

Art can and ought to imitate aspects of life but lest we forget, this is a movie that was primarily made to help sell dolls (hey, look, too. there are clothes and a special shopping mall in Chicago. What a great place to spend the day with mom!) to young, middleclass, white girls with ambitious mothers who want them to grow up and have important careers.

What are a you talking about? It's not "end of [film making] as a genre".

It's clearly just another pleasant movie for girls - and boys? - who may like the American Girl series, dolls and books. (It's probably also a valentine to a long-gone era or two & - rightly or wrong - some people's nostalgia for that past.)

Carolyn Stice is the youngest of three girls born to Rufus Boyd Stice (Boyd Stice) and Blanche Louise Roundy Stice (Louise Stice). Carolyn has researched and recorded her family history. From those records and her oral memoirs, we get a glimpse of the culture and lifestyle of one of the early families of the Highland area. They lived on thirty acres.

Carolyn’s grandfather, Rufus Jesse Stice, with his brother-in-law, Harvey Speer, purchased 60 acres on Highland in 1906, later selling 30 acres to Ludwig Larson. Rufus Jesse Stice worked as the operator and agent of the Union Pacific Railroad in Lehi and often rented the Highland property to others. During the summer, he sent his wife and 5 children to live on the farm. He paid a Mr. Hobbs to tend the farm.

While living on the Highland farm, Boyd’s mother, Alice May Speer Stice and Mary Lee Myers organized the first Primary School in Highland. They traveled about the area in the Stice’s newly purchased “surrey” informing children of the opportunity to attend LDS Primary education in Highland for the first time.

After serving a mission in the Southern States, Boyd Stice returned home. In 1926, he met and wed Louise Roundy and moved into the two-room farm cabin, which was built in approximately 1890, with the kitchen added a few years later. Sadly, their first son was stillborn. The following children were three girls: Dorothy, Darlene and Carolyn.

One room was a living room/bedroom combination with two beds. One bed for the parents and one twin bed accommodated all three girls. The other room was a kitchen/eating area. It was wallpapered, had curtains and a wood floor. In 1930, electricity was brought to the area and the house was furnished with electric lights. Prior to that, they used a gasoline lamp. At the same time, the 50-foot well was modernized with an electric pump, bringing cold water into the house for the first time. This signified a vast improvement over carrying water into the house one bucket at a time. Water was heated on a coal stove and used for washing clothes and baths. The toilet was located in an out-house and dirty water from the house was sent to the cesspool out back. The bathtub consisted of a tin tub filled three inches high and placed near the stove surrounded by towel-draped chairs for privacy. The girls would call, “First bath, no leaders, no presidents!” For warmth, the family had a Heatrola in which they burned wood and coal. The young girls gathered kindling and wood and Louise, their mother, would start the fires in the morning. Carolyn remembers summer washing took place out on the porch and winter washing was indoors in the kitchen. Washing tubs were set up and an electric wringer twisted the water out of the clothes and put them into the rinsing tub and wrung them again, then they were hung on a clothesline to dry. When the well pump failed, they would secure a ladder to the porch posts and lower their dad down the fifty-foot well to retrieve and repair the pump.

The family had a piano, sewing machine, radio and a telephone. As a welcome amusement, Carolyn remembers rocking in a chair as she listened to the radio. She liked the shows “The Lone Ranger”, “The Green Hornet”, “The Shadow” and Art Linkletter’s “House Party”. House Party was especially appealing to her because it solicited audience questions and awarded prizes.

The Great Depression hit Utah especially hard. “In 1933 Utah's unemployment rate was 35.8 percent, the fourth highest in the nation, and for the decade as a whole it averaged 26 percent. By 1932 the wage level for those who had not lost their jobs had declined by 45 percent and the workweek by 20 percent. Annual per capita income dropped 50 percent by 1932, and in 1940 had risen to only 82 percent of the pre-depression level. By the spring of 1933, thirty-two percent of the population was receiving all or part of their food, clothing, shelter, and other necessities from government relief funds: 32 of Utah's 105 banks had failed; and corporate business failures had increased by 20 percent”. (http://www.media.utah.edu/UHE/d/DEPPRESSION,GREAT.html)

The Stice family had purchased their first car; a Ford, in 1936, the year Carolyn was born, and they had one of the few home phones in the area. There was no school in Highland at the time and the girls commuted by bus to American Fork and attended the Harrington Elementary School on 50 North and Center Street in the now historic downtown district, and American Fork Junior and Senior High Schools on the hill to the North of the cemetery.

Carolyn Stice remembers as a small child, shopping in American Fork for the few goods that they did not produce themselves. They would occasionally purchase such foods as lettuce for sandwiches and “Cheerios”. There was a Boleys’ grocery store, and a Chipman’s Department Store.

When World War II broke out 1939-1945, Boyd Stice dedicated most of his time working on the farm. He made many trips to Detroit to bring back cars to sell. The family grew and harvested raspberries, potatoes, grain, hay and peas. The girls helped with the harvesting when they were old enough. They also grazed pigs and cows and had chickens.

Irrigating the farm was done by the flooding method where water was turned on once a week and left on for many hours. Headgates were located along the ditch to help irrigate sections of the fields, and there was one in front of the house by the road to irrigate the orchards and lawn around the house. Evar Strasburg and Clarence Greenland were the water masters and oversaw all matters relating to the town irrigation. Managing to acquire more water was always a priority.

Looking back on her life in Highland, Carolyn Stice Kitchen comments, “We were all happy and all poor. [We were] all in the same boat and did the best we could.”