When I was a little girl, I had an American Girl doll. Her name was Kirsten, and if I remember correctly, her story was pretty much Little House on the Prairie: life as a pioneer girl circa 1854. My friends had Samantha, the Victorian; Molly, from WWII; and Felicity, the Colonial girl. For most of us, our choice of doll had to do with our shared hair color, our common need for glasses, or the fact that she had the prettiest clothes. But whether we all fully appreciated it at the time or not, the most interesting thing about each girl was her story.

Unlike most other generic dolls which come to their owners with no other stories than the ones we make up, the American Girl dolls come with stories that are not only uniquely their own, but also historically rooted in the time period which they are from. They are inspirational tales about getting through whatever may come your way and being all that you can be. And while my own doll may be packed up in a box at my parents' house right now, the story of Kit Kittredge (Abigail Breslin), American Girl of 1930s Depression-era Cincinnati and the first American Girl to be brought to the big screen, may very well have made me smile just as much as her "sisters"' stories did fifteen years ago.

Kit Kittredge's story begins in 1934. The Depression has already started, but for Kit, its full reality has yet to be revealed. As she tells us at the beginning, "I was focused on one thing. I wanted to be a reporter." But after the economic crisis strikes her best friend—taking her home and sending her family to the country—and soon after her own family—taking her father's business, sending him to Chicago to look for work, and turning their home into a boarding house—both the story of Kit's life and the stories that she writes suddenly find the Depression and its effects at their center.

At its core, Kit's story is one of hard times—how we respond to them and what we do to get through them. At the Kittredge family home, we see what it looks like to make the best of what you have, to keep on keeping on, and to do so together. Despite economic troubles and several absent fathers, the residents of the Kittredge household give us a sense that every day becomes just a little bit easier when it is faced alongside others. Even though the Kittredges are struggling, Mrs. Kittredge (Julia Ormond) proves that we always have the ability to help one another by hiring two young hobo boys to do work around the house. And after Kit befriends the young laborers and gets to know their hobo friends, we see that the same spirit of sharing what you have with those around you and sticking together during difficult times becomes almost even more important the more difficult things get.

Of course, every story has to have conflict. And so enter the so-called "hobo robberies." Throughout the region, pick-pocketing and household robberies are being blamed on hobo populations. And when the robberies hit the home of Kit's friend Ruthie (Madison Davenport), and then the Kittredges' own home, the question becomes: Can you really count on those around you, or is making it through this life more about every man for himself than anything else?

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