Is That A Spiderwick Behind Your Foucault?

A nice essay in the Chronicle of Higher Education from a literature professor who accidentally becomes addicted to children's fantasy books. The whole thing is worth a read, but I particularly like this:

I suspect that as we get older, our taste in books leans toward more-realistic narratives, ones in which we can find some glimpse of ourselves. Yet to deny ourselves the magic, the wonder of stories, simply because we are adults is sinful. In a postscript to his review of Philip Pullman's The Amber Spyglass, Michael Dirda writes, "Children's literature counts as some of the most imaginative writing anyone could want." By spending several months reading children's and young-adult fiction, I rediscovered not only what made me a reader in the first place, but also something essential about myself: my imagination.