Q: How old is Dakota Fanning, who stole last years' movie I Am Sam from Sean Pean? She's the most charismatic child actor I've seen in a long time. MARY CONNOLLY, Detroit
Indeed. A very precocious 8, Dakota, who was in Steven Spielberg's alien miniseries, Taken, this month on SciFi, already has the respect of her acting peers, last spring, she was the youngest performer ever nominated for a Screen Actors Guild award. She's smart (she was reading at 2), polite and can act (to make herself cry, she thinks of her goldfish that died), so it's no surprise directors see her as a true peach (she is Georgia-born and -bred). She's now filming Thanksgiving's guaranteed hit Dr. Seuss' The Cat in the Hat, starring Mike Myers as the cat. She also has another comedy due in 2000, Molly Gunn, with Brittany Murphy.

The question and answer is accompanied by a small color photo of Dakota in a pretty red dress which she is holding out with her left hand.