Go the F**k to Sleep is a bedtime book for parents who live in the real world, where a few snoozing kitties and cutesy rhymes don’t always send a toddler sailing blissfully off to dreamland.
Profane, affectionate, and radically honest, California Book Award-winning author Adam Mansbach’s verses perfectly capture the familiar—and unspoken—tribulations of putting your little angel down for the night. In the process, they open up a conversation about parenting, granting us permission to admit our frustrations, and laugh at their absurdity.
With illustrations by Ricardo Cortés, Go the F**k to Sleep is beautiful, subversive and pants-wettingly funny—a book for parents new, old and expectant. You probably should not read it to your children.
Praise for Go the F**k to Sleep:
The language? WTF! This hilarious, politically incorrect book is totally correct about the feelings of sleepless, brain-dead parents.
— Mem Fox
A children’s book for grown-ups! I really did laugh out loud—hilarious!
— David Byrne
Total genius.
— Jonathan Lethem, father of two, author of Motherless Brooklyn
A children's book for grown-ups! I really did laugh out loud--hilarious!
— David Byrne, father of one, musician, artist
This is the most honest children's book ever written. And it's f*cking hilarious.
— A.J. Jacobs, father of three, author of The Year of Living Biblically
I wish this book had been around during my daughter's overly protracted sleep rituals! Finally, someone tells it like it really is. This is no-guilt funny and a godsend!
— Cristina Garcia, mother of one, author of The Lady Matador's Hotel
Go the F**k to Sleep is the secret anthem of tired parents everywhere. Adam Mansbach's homage to the tropes of bedtime stories is pitch perfect, and Ricardo Cortes's stunning illustrations will keep grown-ups and kids alike returning to these pages again and again!
— Bliss Broyard, author of One Drop: My Father's Hidden Life
About the Author
Adam Mansbach's novels include The End of the Jews, winner of the California Book Award, and the best-selling Angry Black White Boy, a San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of 2005. His fiction and essays have appeared in the New York Times Book Review, the Believer, Granta, the Los Angeles Times, and many other publications. He is the 2010-2011 New Voices Professor of Fiction at Rutgers University. His daughter, Vivien, is three.
Ricardo Cortes has illustrated books about marijuana, electricity, the Jamaican bobsled team, and Chinese food. His work has been featured in the New York Times, Vanity Fair, Entertainment Weekly, New York Magazine, the Village Voice, the San Francisco Chronicle, and on the O'Reilly Factor and CNN. He lives in Brooklyn, NY, where he is working on a book about the history of Coca-Cola and cocaine.
Industry Reviews
'The language? WTF! This hilarious, politically incorrect book is totally correct about the feelings of sleepless, brain-dead parents.' -- Mem Fox
'Clever, funny and cathartic, parents and babysitters alike will love it.' 4 stars * Big Issue *
'Filled with the same humour and exasperation as the first, [Seriously, Just Go to Sleep] will have you snickering.' * Practical Parenting *
'There might be some parents who don't relate to this book. But not many.' -- Noni Hazlehurst
'Anyone who has ever struggled to put a child to bed will find solace in this "children's book for parents"...Order it now.' * Canberra Times *
'The books has been described as the most honest children's book ever, and I couldn't agree more...being able to laugh, instead of cry, through those long waking nights can only be a healthy thing.' * Daily Telegraph *