business of book reviews

This week's New York Times Book Review featured the Children's Book bestseller listings. Fascinating stuff, Robert Sabuda's pop-up book magic is well deserving of two spots in the top five. But read a few pages further...

Please, please, PLEASE tell me why The O'Reilly Factor for Kids is on the Advice, How-To and Miscellaneous best-seller list. You could show up at a bookstore and buy a child in a nonfiction book about engineering, chemical reactions, ancient history, inspirational biography, but somehow all that catches your eye is the obnoxious face out of the nonreturnable eight copies of spin-off punditry book. WOW. Grown-ups suck. You know that every kid that gets that book from some well-meaning old fart just has another reason to feel misunderstood and bitter. And what kind of advice, exactly, is Bill offering to today's youth? How the capitalist, white supremacist patriarchy allows exposed sexual harassers to have their own TV show?