This is a gift book for parents that will have them laughing even as they cry. "Go the Fuck 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 Cortes, "Go the Fuck to Sleep" is beautiful, subversive, and pants-wettingly funny. This is a book for parents new, old, and expectant.
You should not, however, read it to your children.
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. To see more of his work, visit: Rmcortes.com.
"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
Industry Reviews
* Total genius -- Jonathan Lethem, author of MOTHERLESS BROOKLYN, father of two * A children's book for grown-ups! I really did laugh out loud-hilarious! -- David Byrne, musician, father of one * Beautiful, brilliant, funny as fuck. A new Contented Little Baby Book for the discontented parent -- Helen Walsh, author of GO TO SLEEP, mother of one * The secret anthem of tired parents everywhere -- Bliss Boyard, author of ONE DROP: MY FATHER'S HIDDEN LIFE, mother of two * This is the most honest children's book ever written. And it's f*cking hilarious -- A.J. Jacobs, author of THE YEAR OF LIVING BIBLICALLY, father of three * Finally, someone tells it like it really is. This is no-guilt funny and a godsend! -- Cristina Garcia, author of THE LADY MATADOR'S HOTEL, mother of one * An instantly recognisable and timeless theme tune for bleary-eyed parents everywhere - a hymn to the horrors of bedtime. Beautifully crafted, rhythmical, affectionate, profane and searingly honest, it is very funny. -- Alex Frean Times * Hilariously funny, it gets the tone bang on - and it's comforting to know bedtime is a universally fraught experience. News of the World * A gleeful howl of blasphemy. for the exhausted parent, nudged to the brink of sanity by lack of sleep, GTFTS is more than a reason to snigger - it's a gesture of compassion. -- Benjamin Secher Daily Telegraph * it subverts accepted notions of what is meant by 'good' parenting...a clever conceit, executed with panache The Lady * cult bedtime nursery rhyme... Samuel L Jackson invests his reading with the sympathetic intelligence and undertow of menace, recognisable from his great cinema roles -- Karen Robinson The Sunday Times Culture Magazine * Beautifully illustrated... a bonding experience for exhausted parents for generations to come Belfast Telegraph Evening * subverts accepted notions of what is meant by 'good' parenting... it is genuinely funny The Lady * clever conceit, executed with panache The Lady * Bedtime stories will never be the same again -- Viv Groskop The Guardian * dreamy illustrations are a perfect match -- Alexandra Frean The Times * an instantly recognisable and timeless theme tune for bleary-eyed parents everywhere - a hymn to the horrors of bedtime. Beautifully crafted, rhythmical affectionate, profane and honest, it is very funny -- Alexandra Frean The Times
