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Weeks from turning 50, Jamie Lee Curtis has never been happier. It's not because the longtime movie star, who last enchanted the kids in Freaky Friday, is appearing in the hit Beverly Hills Chihuahua . Although, she says, that was a lot of fun.

"It's a delicious little movie and," she says, "it's very sweet for children."

And not because she's just come out with her eighth children's book in her Books to Grow By series: Big Words for Little People (Joanna Cotler Books/HarperCollins Children's Books, $16.99, for ages 4-8), which promises to be as popular as its best-selling predecessors.

She will be signing copies at Barnes & Noble in Frisco on Wednesday.

She just feels good about aging on her own terms, she says. Without plastic surgery or Botox. Without the addictions of alcohol or painkillers – she's been in recovery 10 years now. Without feeling the need to say things she doesn't mean. Without feeling she has to answer every question.

"Honestly, the greatest news is that I don't have to tell you who I am," she says on the phone from Los Angeles. "I know who I am. For me to articulate that or why I love my husband or why I love my children – no words will be satisfying to me. But I am very comfortable in my life and in my mind and in my body, and that's really it for me."

It's a subject she might touch upon as the featured speaker at the Dallas Women's Foundation luncheon Wednesday.

Although what's most striking about Ms. Curtis is how she embodies the Bob Dylan line: "But I was so much older then/I'm younger than that now."

At the start of her career three decades ago, she made her mark in jaded, girl-who's-seen-it-all roles. The daughter of Hollywood royalty, Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh, she debuted in John Carpenter's Halloween and then found hits in Trading Places, Perfect and A Fish Called Wanda.

But now, in her children's books and even her choice of films, what comes through is childlike wonder.

She got the idea for Big Words for Little People after an editor told her not to use the word consequences in her first 1993 book, When I Was Little, saying it was too big for 4-year-olds to comprehend.

She changed the word to "time-outs." But she kept thinking about it. It took more than a decade, but she came up with a rhyming way of explaining the word and working other too-big words like privacy and patience and even irate into the text.

Which brings up another question: How has she managed to remain so resolutely herself living in the artifice capital of the world?

She credits years of psychoanalysis, hard work and a loving relationship with her husband of 23 years, filmmaker Christopher Guest, and their children, Annie, 22, and Thomas, 12.

She also gives a nod to a young man who told her when she was 23 that she was one of the most incurious people he'd met.

"I think that's when I realized that there was a lot of delusion and a facade-ness to me. Everything came crashing down, but from that point it's been a pretty fast acceleration to understanding."

The revelation was hurtful, but pain is not something she tries to avoid. Her favorite line to quote on the subject is from The Princess Bride:

"Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something."

She would not volunteer to go back in time and relive the bumps on her journey. That's another reason she's looking forward to 50.

"I'm of the belief that happiness comes from understanding and acceptance and perspective. I don't know anyone who would like to return to her 20s."Plan your life

Jamie Lee Curtis will address the Dallas Women's Foundation noon Wednesday at the Hilton Anatole, 2201 Stemmons Freeway. Tickets $150 at 214-965-9977, ext. 103, or www.dallaswomens foundation.org. She'll also sign books

5 p.m. Wednesday at Barnes & Noble, Stonebriar Centre, Frisco (free).