Mountain Biking - Nice bikes for the kids?

I'm thinking about a build for a couple of young kids. I know that there are a few decent kids bikes out there, but a scant few that would be race worthy.

Scott makes the Spark and Scale with an impressive build.
Specialized makes the Hotrock 24" FSR, I know...could be a decent foundation.
I like the fact that you can get 152mm triple on one of Specialized's girly bikes.
I've seen some dinky little BMX'ers that are actually the right size for a kid, but I want somthing that they could do some XC racing on.

How 'bout other light and proportionate frames/forks/components? Any others that y'all recall?

Ed-

I had my son riding/racing on a 24" wheeled Performance bike back in about '95, and I know things have changed a lot since then. Rigid fork so he certainly learned to pick his lines. I WAS able to build wheels and find 24" tires, not easy, tho. Of course the thing about the 24"wheels or smaller is that they don't roll/roll over as well as full size. And of course, no more than about two years or so and they're up to a bigger bike.

get them something to last, since they will need a 26'er in the next couple years. ive seen 24" in the freeride category (with the 26'ers), which looked kinda funny, but never XC. good luck

get them something to last, since they will need a 26'er in the next couple years.

I like white because black's my favorite color.

It looks like Kona makes some good childrens bikes. My little bro got a Trek Mt. 220. I dont think its race worthy but its a good bike for his age.

I have recently gone through the pain of buying a 24 inch wheel bike for my 8 year old son and spent a lot of time shopping and trying to decide what he was actually going to use the thing for. He has been racing BMX for a few years and loves the dirt jumps and skate parks plus we don't have a lot of XC riding in our area so we were looking for a more downhill/dirt jump style bike.

I really like the specs on the Scott bikes you mentioned but haven't actually seen one as they seem to have a small presence in Western Canada.
Here is a list of bikes we looked at that you may want to check out.
Giant STP 125
Fisher PreCaliber 24
Fisher Opie 24
Kona Stuff 2-4 this was high on our list
Rocky Mountain Soul24 - this is a really nice little bike that I would have bought had I not found a better deal. The Rocky Mountain website shows a 14 inch as the smallest size but it fits smaller than the measurements would suggest.

We ended up picking up a slightly used Norco Kompressor (literally 6 rides), certainly not an XC race bike but ideal for where we ride. I have to keep the thing under wraps for 4 months until his 9th birthday, that will give me some time to find and install some lighter parts on the thing (the current tires weigh 3 pounds a piece!)

Depending on how big the kids are you may also want to consider some of the small 26 inch wheel bikes. I found one that on paper fit but couldn't actually find one in a store. It was a Devinci Cameleon and it came in an XXS size.