‘Thumbelina’

Don Bluth’s “Hans Christian Andersen’s Thumbelina” casts its spell so effectively that you don’t even have to be a child to be swept away to its magical never-never land. Another success from Bluth and his partner Gary Goldman, whose previous animated hits include “The Secret of NIMH” and “An American Tail,” it is a work of lilting pace and charm with an array of enjoyable rather than memorable songs, with lyrics by Jack Feldman and Bruce Sussman and music by Barry Manilow. As a work of animation, it is securely in the Disney tradition of simply designed whimsical characters set against painterly landscapes and interiors. A lonely woman (voice of Barbara Cook) living in a cottage on theoutskirts of medieval Paris so longs for a child that she visits a “good witch,” who gives her a barley seed, revealing, when it blossoms, a tiny living creature, a pretty young woman whom her new mother names Thumbelina (voice of Jodi Benson) because she’s no bigger than her thumb (Disney Tuesday at 7 p.m.).