My wife asked me to get a hold of Ramona and Beezus, and Fox was happy to oblige me. I think somewhere a long, long time ago, I read the various books of Beverly Cleary but the second grade teacher with whom I share the house loves the stories about this crazy third-grader and her wild antics. Given that the film adaptation features Ginnifer Goodwin (Big Love), Bridget Moynahan (I, Robot), Josh Duhamel (the Transformers movies), Sandra Oh, and John Corbett (My Big Fat Greek Wedding) in addition to all of the kiddies, this one has the ability to lure the parents in, too, even if they're not huge Cleary fans.

Early on, the world of adults breaks into the extremely imaginative world of Ramona (Joey King), who imagines ravines over which her monkey bars swing, as her father (Corbett) gets laid off in the midst of the family's home renovation. Meanwhile, her Aunt Bea (Goodwin) re-encounters her high school flame (Duhamel) and tells Ramona that she has a callous (like the one Ramona herself develops from frequent monkey bar use) on her heart and the man is trying to rip it off. Both the effects of the job loss and her aunt's encounter with love filter into her little-girl world with some emotionally charged and frequently hilarious results.

While I'm probably not going to be busting down the door of the theater to see the sequel, there's certainly nothing wrong with the film, and there are a lot of right things. A lot of negative things get said to Ramona, and she takes a lot of them to heart. We see the negative effects and the lesson is reinforced that we should be AWFULLY careful about what we say to our kids. They are very literal in their thinking and we often lose sight of that. But the overwhelmingly positive thing I see in the movie? It's got to be the power of family.

Ramona and her older sister, Beezus (Selena Gomez), don't always get along. Ramona's parents seem to give her a significant amount of teasing, and everyone else does, too. But when push comes to shove, when the bad stuff rains down on them (like Job?) they respond by sticking together and working things out as a family. There's no giving up, packing it in, no growing bitter, getting divorced, or embarking on bank robberies. No, this family sticks together and smiles in the rain.

Shouldn't we all be like that?

Ramona's dad tells her that he wouldn't change a thing even with all of the bad stuff that's happened. He tells his girls that he loves them and teaches them to love themselves. Maybe I shouldn't be surprised: this was produced by Walden Media, and the agenda always seems to be "love and family first." But entertainment that isn't super lame and which emphasizes some powerful messages shouldn't be ignored. Maybe if more of our families looked like this, the world would really be a better place.

And that's no figment of my imagination.