The summer of 2008 also saw the Great Depression making a comeback through the elevation of Kit Kittredge, the American Girl character, from literary heroine to matinee idol. The film Kit Kittredge: An American Girl, based on the doll and series of books of the same name, is set in 1934 at the height of the Great Depression. Plot points in the movie include lost income, foreclosure, and rationing.

But 1934 isn't the only recession year staging a comeback for today's kids. So is 1977 … and 1877. A film version of Ramona and Her Father is currently in development, and a musical version of Little House on the Prairie is selling out at Minneapolis' Guthrie Theater and seems well-positioned to make the jump to Broadway. The show's cast includes "Half Pint" Melissa Gilbert, now all grown up and playing the role of "Ma."

These re-envisioned "hard times" tales make perfect comfort food for those of us who grew up on them in the late '70s. Like Ramona Quimby and Laura Ingalls, Kit Kittredge can, as her movie trailer intones, "turn the worst of times into the best." Given the current state of the economy, who wouldn't line up for that?