Recently in the reluctant grown-up Category

"Sometimes [my children] don't seem able to operate in an imaginative world. ... If, like the four Pevensie children (two boys and two girls) of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, they were sent off to the countryside to avoid the Blitz, my children might well have to be marched, under protest, to the room with the old wardrobe and shoved in among the coats; it would be hard for them to grasp how an entire old house, filled with unknown rooms and corridors, might become a world of unlimited play." - Michael Chabon

Of everything that overwhelms me about becoming a parent - which I will, officially, in just over three months, if all continues to go well - this reality is the most depressing. Is it even possible to raise kids capable and desirous of inhabiting imagined worlds for hours at a time anymore? I mean, if Michael Effing Chabon would have to bribe and/or force his kids to become princes and princesses of an entire kingdom populated by twee fauns and talking rodents, what hope is there for the rest of us?

These questions provide one of the central themes in Chabon's new-ish volume of essays, Manhood for Amateurs. I originally checked it out of the library for Nathan, something to add to his stash of suddenly fatherhood-heavy bedside reading. But I dipped into the first essay on my dinner break that night and got hooked. I always feel a little weird reading it in public, but tell myself that there is no more rank amateur at manhood than me.

My favorite essay plays off the theme of lost childhood adventure mentioned above. It's called "The Wilderness of Childhood," and you can read it here. I'm generally not a huge fan of romanticizing the past, but damn, it really is depressing to think that kids today are facing the abandonment of "sandlots and creek beds, the alleys and woodlands... in favor of a system of reservations--Chuck E. Cheese, the Jungle, the Discovery Zone." I valued the opportunity to run around like a feral animal, with a gang of other wild childs, in the woods of my suburban neighborhood growing up. I want my children to have that same chance. I will have to battle my natural tendency towards anxiety and urge for control - and, apparently, culture at large - to do it. Not sure how, just yet, but reading things like Chabon's essays at least help me feel less alone in wanting to make sure the wardrobe door still stands slightly ajar and invitingly mysterious.

Let's say you have recently, as in three days ago, completed your masters degree in library science after one-point-five fast-paced yet laborious years.

And let's say you are about to become the children's librarian at a well-loved, well-funded urban neighborhood library.

And let us also imagine that you are realizing how little you actually know about children's literature, even though you like it in general. (Let us say, in fact, that you are far more well-versed in teenage vampire fiction than is healthy for any person, but especially for someone who needs to recommend books to people under four feet tall.)

Meanwhile, let's imagine that you have always wanted to read all the Newbery Medal-winning books for children, dating back to 1922, fully realizing that some of them might be dull.

And let's say you have recently been obsessed with Jezebel.com's trip down memory lane into juvenile fiction of the 1980s.

Also, you are addicted to serial YouTube collaborations by nerdy literate people.

Let's say you're considering joining their ranks and vlogging through the Newberys, two at a time, one from the recent past, one from the distant past. There would be field trips to your library's incredible Children's Literature collection, and possibly interviews with children you have wrangled into reading these books with you. Not to mention humor.

Would you be crazy?

Would you have collaborators, and who would they be?

And what would you call such an endeavor?

(FYI, Newbery Project is already taken. Newbery Experiment is a bit too clinical. Newbery Pie is too cutesy, although I am not averse to puns. I mean, YOU are not averse to puns. All hypothetical.)

Over the past few years, the Harry Potter phenomenon has made it kosher for responsible adults to carry around literature intended for kids. And not only to be seen reading children’s books in public—to obsess over them. Grown people don’t hesitate to discuss the finer points of quidditch on electronic discussion boards, compose songs about wizardry as an intelligent career move, or dress up as teenaged sorcerers in anticipation of each new book’s release.

All this is quite a relief to me, personally. Although I read a lot of fiction intended for adults, I have failed to abandon—and, in fact, often prefer—the types of books I read in high school. These days I have a bonafide professional reason for it: I’m four credits away from becoming a public librarian, and public librarians need to know What The Kids Are Into. But that aside, I don’t think I could give up the world of young adult fiction anyway. It’s too fun, too morbidly humiliating and exhilarating, too emotionally complex—and, these days, too well-written...

>> Read more about my Top Ten Young Adult Books for Grown-Ups at catapult magazine.

>> Revisit your favorite teen lit of yore - including the witch-tastic Summer of Fear by Lois Duncan - at Jezebel's Fine Lines reviews.