I review three picture books about little superheroes for the New York Times this week. (I didn't much like any of them.)

Reviewing for a newspaper (or whatever it is we call them now) is really different from what we need to do at the Horn Book. You get more words, but you have to assume that your audience doesn't know a thing about children's books so, Lucy, there's a lot of  'splaining to do. At the same time, your audience is exactly the demographic targeted by the books  I covered Sunday: educated, book-buying parents and other retail-susceptible reading adults. It will forever be a mystery to me that civilian grownups can be completely  particular and unapologetic when it comes to their own reading choices but still believe that their kids need to be instructed and preached to, by a celebrity if possible. Don't these people remember how they came by their own love of reading? But maybe I am underestimating public taste: let's just hope that Anita Silvey is onto something when she writes in this month's SLJ that the reason people aren't buying more new picture books is that too many new picture books suck out loud. (I paraphrase.)