I had an interesting experience yesterday.  As most of you know I am single and all of my 5 nieces live many miles away 🙁 so my access to little kids in my life is relatively small.  Most of the time when I watch animation I have to guess what little kids like my nieces might think about it or ask them over the phone.  I wish they lived closer and I could take them with me to the theater but it is not the case!

Anyway, yesterday I got the opportunity to babysit for a friend at church who is moving and needed the kids to be away for the day so they could pack up and clean.  I don’t have that much living space in my house and unfortunately the weather did not cooperate for going to the park or outside activities so we were limited.  We did a lot of drawing.  The older girl who was 4 I think seriously drew for 4 hours maybe more.  It was impressive.

But there was still entertaining the youngest girl.  We made cookies and after that I didn’t have a whole lot else to do with little kids at my house besides stick on my Disney library.  Both of their reactions were surprising. And I know 4 movies is a bit garish for one day but my house is small and I really don’t have much to entertain kids beyond drawing and making cookies so go easy on me!

First thing we saw was a Mickey Mouse Christmas Movie called Mickeys Magical Christmas: Snowed in at the House of Mouse.  The cover looked bad but it actually was pretty good.  It is basically a whole bunch of shorts narrated by Mickey and Donald who is in a grumpy mood.  It was amazing how the minute Mickey came on screen the little girl lit up and gleefully said ‘It’s Mickey!’.  She loved the film. The final segment on Mickey’s Christmas Carol was a little much for her but she didn’t hate it.

Then I put in Jungle Book thinking they would love it.  What surprised me is that both of them were not engaged at all.  I thought they would love the music and the simple story but I ended up drawing  with both as it played.  It didn’t capture either girls attention at all like Mickey.  Even Bare Necessities they were not into.

Then I put on Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh.  I figured it would be a slam dunk.  Again, surprisingly it didn’t really seem to hold their interest that much although they liked it better than Jungle Book.  Once Tigger came on the screen they liked it much better but before that it didn’t do much for them.

Then next I put on Frozen and I’m not kidding you the littlest girl was sitting with her back away from the TV when the opening chords to Frozen Heart came on and she lit up, a huge smile on her face.  Lana stopped drawing and came in the room right away.  They loved it! I love Frozen but I have never watched it with little girls and was amazed at how much they loved it. They knew every line to every song and sang along with gusto.  It was so much more to use the pun animated than any of the other choices I had played.  Call it recency bias but 2 little girls have spoken and Frozen was definitely the favorite.

Of the movies these children liked Frozen, Mickey’s Magical Christmas, Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh and Jungle Book in that order.  Isn’t that surprising (I keep using that word but don’t know any other way to say it?).  Obviously this is only 2 kids and only 4 films but it was interesting to me nonetheless. What have you guys found in your families/kids in your life?  Like I said, I don’t have many in my life, so always interesting to see how actual kids respond to these films that I love. What do they like and does it ever surprise you?  Do they like things that you don’t? I’d love to know.

By the way Ben Affleck better watch out because my Dark Knight is pretty awesome… 😉