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(Lorraine Ahearn is attending a conference on media convergence. In her place appears Hack Crawstuck, syndicated critic and author of "The Future Is Gone With the Wind.")

Well, summer is here, and I'm all for a little G-rated fare, a fistful of Laffy Taffy and an hour or two of pure, air-conditioned escape.

But with "Kit Kittredge: An American Girl," HBO's new big-screen blockbuster, Hollywood has gone too far.

Masquerading as a gauzy tribute to Depression-era optimism and self-reliance, "Kit" perpetrates the worst kind of fraud. And I don't mean selling under-12 girls those expensive tie-in dolls from Mattel subsidiary American Girl.

No, I'm talking about peddling a hoax, a bill of goods, a big, fat lie.

First, let's set the stage. It's 1934 Cincinnati.

Businesses are going belly-up. Banks are seizing homes. Hobo villages are sprouting on the edge of town. Even once well-heeled stockbrokers and automobile dealers have fallen on hard times.

As a crime spree grips the city, police suspect hobo involvement, noting the presence of hobo symbols scrawled on fence posts and curbstones. Plausible so far, but wait.

When things grow dire for the family of Kit, played by Abigail ("Little Miss Sunshine") Breslin, the 10-year-old hatches a plan to save the day: She'll become a newspaper reporter!

Now, don't get me wrong. As a piece of Americana, "Kit" is a generous slice of nostalgia for a time of roller skates and tree houses, trolley cars and Victrolas.

And as an allegory, it even culls some pertinent questions from the lessons of the Great Depression. Among them: Why not zone for boarding houses? Was Thanksgiving better before ESPN? And whatever happened to people who really would "work for food"?

Unfortunately, all these fertile questions are trodden underfoot, crushed by the weight of a steamroller of a plot solution.

Yes, just when things seem hopeless for Kit, her New Dealer mom (Julia Ormand) and their hobo friends, screenwriter Ann Peacock has the plucky child march down to the big-city daily newsroom and confront the gruff but kindly city editor (Wallace Shawn).

As with the inevitable moment in every horror movie, when the ingenue in a nightgown descends the cellar steps alone, with only a candle to light her way, the audience wants desperately to warn Kit of impending doom. If only she could hear us!

See, there's going to be this invention called television, which is like radio with a picture, and it will beam news around the world - instantaneously, eventually 24 hours a day.

There will be no more newsboys, but instead, this thing called an Internet, where stories are free. Not even a penny a word, Kit. Sales will plummet - like they did at your father's Edsel dealership - and investors will buy up the real estate. Then there will be this man from Australia, Rupert Murdoch ...

It's no use. She can't hear us. The city editor with the heart of gold just gave Kit her first byline.

"From now on," she says, "whatever life had in store, I was ready."

Do we tell her about blogs?

Contact Lorraine Ahearn at 373-7334 or lorraine.ahearn@news-record.com