Conspicuous Consumption

   I'm on record as saying that I don't like children's literature. This is not because there is anything wrong with children's literature, but I'm not a child, and neither am I a "kidult" (I thought Will Self had coined that, but apparently it's much older) who revels in the books and media he or she enjoyed or would have enjoyed as a child. I've never read Harry Potter, and probably never will. And yet, here I am writing about a children's book that I enjoyed. I enjoyed the first in the series The Wolves of Willoughby Chase , more, but that's by way of saying that this is not even the first children's book I've read in recent years. I moved on to the second book in the series because I had enjoyed the first a great deal. What both books share is a clever plot, elegant writing, and rollicking humor.   The thing that makes it possible for even as curmudgeonly a reader as me to enjoy these novels is that Aiken does not assume that ch...