Samantha: An American Girl Holiday (DVD, 2004)

Samantha Parkington, an orphan living with her grandmother, is lonely since her best friend, her Uncle Gard, is away in Europe. To her delight, some new servants come to work at a neighbor's house. When Samantha discovers that the family includes three girls and one of them is her age, she is delighted. Samantha quickly becomes best friends with Nellie, the oldest.

After a while, Uncle Gard returns from his trip. Samantha is delighted of course until she finds out that the woman he brought back with him, Cornelia, is his fiancee. Samantha is mad at Uncle Gard because she thinks that he will forget about her. But fortunately Cornelia loves kids and becomes fast friends with Samantha. After their wedding, Samantha takes an extended trip to visit them in New York City.

While in New York, Samantha finds out that Nellie, her best friend, and her sisters have been orphaned and sent to an orphanage in the city. Samantha goes to visit them and discovers the squalid conditions they live in. Then things become even worse: Nellie is going to be separated from her two sisters and sent out West to a farm. Determined not to let that happen, Samantha hatches a daring plan to rescue Nellie and her sisters.

"Samantha: An American Girl Holiday" was truly a delightful film for the entire family. The acting and casting was top notch especially for a TV movie. AnnaSophia Robb (also in "Because of Winn-Dixie") really shines in her movie debut. She captures the Samantha of the books perfectly and is great! Jordan Bridges is also perfect as the playful and fun-filled Uncle Gard. While this movie doesn't follow the books perfectly, it totally captures the spirit and is a great movie all around! If you love the American Girl books, you can't miss this movie! Rated 5/5

I remember when this movie premiered on TV a few years ago, and since I am an AG fan I was interested how they would adapt the doll's stories onto film. It was great! A nice wholesome movie about friendship and the true meaning of family! And since the Movie ends at Christmas, it makes for a great Holiday tradition! Do not miss out on owning this lovely film! ALL the American Girl Movies are well worth the money!

This American Girl movie is not exaclty like the books, but has great family content. My daughter had seen this earlier at a friend's house and we got for her as a surprise ~ she loves it! Entertaining and historically accurate you get a picture of life at the turn of the century. It has parallels drawn between today's life and the explosion of technologies to the emergence of so many inventions of that era. Great movie!

My girls have American Girl dolls. I was looking for something a little less sassy than the standard Disney fare and was pleased that they loved it!

The movie was very sweet and wholesome a real family movie! Samantha is a loyal friend, a good role model for girls. She was ahead of her time and didn't care about class.. Cornelia her uncle's fiancé was a suffragette which is great too.

After viewing my girls declared they wanted to see it again, a sure sign it was a hit!

This was a very sweet, endearing movie. My daughter loved it! Many life lessons in the story. I'm sure we will watch this movie over and over again.
We decide to buy this movie because my daughter is an American Girl lover! We purchased the Kit movie at Christmas and found the AG stories to be loving, kind and full of life lessons. We will be purchasing more AG movies in the future.