“Kit Kittredge, An American Girl.” The movie, not the doll. It opened this week, and the reviews are enough to make one gag. “Saccharine.” “Hokiness.” “Relentless sweetness.” “Flimsy plot.”

What I wonder is what in the sam hill are newspapers doing sending 40 year old men to cover movies for 10-year-old girls? In the movie, Kit is trying to get the Cincinnati newspaper to run her writings. So, why–this is such a no-brainer that even editors should have thought of it–why not get a 10 year old girl to review this movie?

Who wants to know what the local drama expert thinks of a children’s movie? I for one don’t.

Friday afternoon, I took our 11-year-old granddaughters, Abby and Erin, to see this movie. Until a few days ago, I had no inkling that a series of dolls exist in the name of this little girl or that to pre-teens, Kit Kittredge is as big as Nancy Drew (or maybe Barbie is a better comparison) was to earlier generations.

I was unable to take JoAnne, 10, who lives in New Hampshire or Darilyn, 10, but 11 later this month, who lives in North Carolina, with us. But wouldn’t that have been a hoot, taking all four granddaughters of that age! Anyway, I did the best I could and took the two who are nearby. It was a fun two hours.

Okay, being your typical grandpa, I would have enjoyed sitting on a park bench for two hours with those two (and moreso, those four). So the fact that I had a good time tells you nothing about the movie.

Okay, the movie. I did what you do before choosing a movie, and checked it out on some of the internet rating places. Today, after seeing “Kit Kittredge,” I’d like to go back to some of the reviewers who called it “simplistic” or “formulaic” and say to them, “Hey–it’s a child’s movie! It’s not for grownups and certainly not for movie critics.”

The truth is that “Kit Kittredge” is more purely a child’s movie than most that claim that for themselves. So many cinematic offerings in that category–whether from Disney or Pixar or other well-respected houses–are fakes. The parents are sitting there enjoying the movie along with their young-uns, and getting all the little innuendos and inside jokes that were inserted for big people and no one else. Meanwhile, the kids are wondering what all the laughter is about.

In this movie, if a kid doesn’t get the joke, it was thrown out. Movie critics don’t know what to do with that.

Saccharine? The movie critics have watched “Ocean’s Eleven” and Mike Myers and Adam Sandler so long, they’ve forgotten what pure sweetness looks like. This may not be 100 percent pure, but it’s miles closer to real life than most of what the silver screens offer these days. What is truer to life than homes being foreclosed on–how current is that?–families being separated as Dad goes in search of a job, moving back in with relatives when the house is gone, and the relentless teasing kids afflict on their peers.

The local reviewer said the outcome was “predictable.” Well, I’m not as smart as the critic and I didn’t predict it. Besides–and this is a biggie when it comes to children’s movies–predictability has nothing to do with anything. Pick up the most popular book series on the planet, Nancy Drew, and see the titles: The Secret of the Old Clock, The Hidden Staircase, and so on. The title gives away the plot. Do the little girls care? Not in the least.

That’s why movies like this do not need to be reviewed and critiqued by sophisticated adults who are clueless as to what little girls want in their stories.

The bad guys in this movie are funny, they are bumblers, fools, and fun to watch. The parents are distracted and busy with adult tasks–it takes place during the Great Depression, so adults had plenty to worry about–and the children are the stars.

It’s a children’s movie, critics. Deal with it.

I seem to remember that in the first “Home Alone” movie, the only one worth paying two bucks to see, Kevin pulled off antics children might dream of doing but would never attempt, the bad guys were simpletons and idiots of the highest order, and the adults were irrelevant. Kids loved that movie. Real-world adults have little patience for such goings-on. That just made it even more fun for the little ones.

Adults can be truly weird when it comes to children’s books and movies and television shows. If the writers have managed to slip in grown-up themes alongside the little-people plots and simplistic happenings, we adults decide only a genius could have accomplished such a feat. “This movie works on all levels,” we hear. “The parents who take the children to see this movie will enjoy it as much as the little ones.”

What that means is the writers and producers of that movie chickened out. They did not have the courage to make a movie just for their target audience, in this case, little girls. Wanting to impress critics and pick up extra stars in their ratings and more dollars in their receipts, they added the little wink-wink asides for the grownups.

The problem is they lose the kids. They miss them entirely.

As a pastor, I frequently did children’s sermons in Sunday morning services. Mostly, I loved it but sometimes it felt burdensome, particularly when I ran out of ideas. The biggest temptation–one I fell prey to time and again–was to look at the boys and girls but tilt the message to the adults in the audience. Not good. The children sometimes did not have a clue what was going on when the adults laughed at a point I had made. No problem; it wasn’t for the kids. I was a grownup, talking to grownups and using the children only as props.

What a fake. Why did I feel every children’s sermon had to teach or tie in with some grand theological theme. I groan just thinking of some of the lessons I tried to convey. I’ll not bore you with examples. (You’re welcome.)

May I suggest we let the children be children. And when we do ministry for their age group in church, let’s ignore all the grownups sitting in the bleachers watching.

The fact is most grownups I know love the idea of little children being protected and not being innundated with the kinds of concerns they themselves deal with every day of their real-world lives. If you make a children’s movie or if you simply present a children’s sermon in church, when tempted to insert snide remarks about the President of the United States or your disapproval of what’s going on in Iraq, cut it out.

Literally. Cut it out.

Not everyone ought to be making children’s movies, writing children’s books, or producing children’s television shows. Not everyone is qualified to teach boys and girls in church or tell the children’s sermon in worship.

To do any of this well, the person has to have one over-riding quality in the mix with all his grownup features: he/she needs to have a childlike spirit.

A childlike spirit refers to the ability to block out the complexities of big-people life and to think as a child.

Jesus said, “Unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 18:3)

We real-world adults are still trying to figure out what He meant by that.