The co-op bookstore for avid readers
Book Cover for: Seriously, Just Go to Sleep, Adam Mansbach

Seriously, Just Go to Sleep

Adam Mansbach

"Now there's a version, complete with more of the gorgeous, yet weirdly subversive illustrations . . . that you can read to your children . . . The best part? It's still funny. The rhythms, the plodding rhymes, the illustrations, the clever play on the overused trope of the world at bedtime--they all work together to take Seriously, Just Go to Sleep beyond parody and into the realm where good children's books belong: things that parents, and children, can honestly come to from different places and enjoy together. I can imagine reading Seriously, Go to Sleep nightly, and even to the point where you're begging the child to choose something else (the ultimate compliment for a picture book) and yet still finding something to enjoy. It captures a different 'zeitgeist' of modern parenting." --New York Times

Seriously, Just Go to Sleep is the G-rated, traditional-sized, children's version of the book every parent has been talking about. Go the F*** to Sleep, the picture book for adults, became a cultural sensation by striking a universal chord for parents. Now, Adam Mansbach and Ricardo Cortés reunite with Seriously, Just Go to Sleep, inviting the children themselves in on the joke. As parents know, kids are well aware of how difficult they can be at bedtime. With Cortés's updated illustrations (including a cameo appearance by Samuel L. Jackson, who narrated the audio book version of Go the F*** to Sleep) and Mansbach's new child-appropriate narrative, the book allows kids to recognize their tactics, giggle at their own mischievousness, and empathize with their parents' struggles--a perspective most children's books don't capture. Most important, it provides a common ground for children and their parents to talk about one of the most stressful aspects of parenting.

Seriously, Just Go to Sleep came to be when Mansbach read a highly censored rendition of the original book to his three-year-old daughter, and she recognized herself as the culprit and was delighted. "We were getting a lot of feedback from parents, saying that their kids loved the book--read in an altered form--because they recognized themselves in the character of the mischievous kid who's winning the bedtime battle, and thought it was hilarious. So we figured we'd do a companion volume that lets kids in on the fun."

Book Details

  • Publisher: Akashic Books, Ltd.
  • Publish Date: Mar 27th, 2012
  • Pages: 32
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 8.40in - 11.20in - 0.40in - 0.95lb
  • EAN: 9781617750786
  • Recommended age: 00-04
  • Categories: Bedtime & DreamsHealth & Daily Living - GeneralComics & Graphic Novels - General

About the Author

Mansbach, Adam: - Adam Mansbach is a novelist, screenwriter, humorist, and cultural critic (in addition to having built an obscene fake children's book empire). His books include Rage Is Back, the California Book Award-winning The End of the Jews, and the best sellers Angry Black White Boy and For This We Left Egypt?, cowritten with Dave Barry and Alan Zweibel. Mansbach was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for his screenplay for the Netflix Original Barry, and is currently adapting his middle-grade novel Jake the Fake Keeps It Real for the Disney Channel. His work has appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times Book Review, Esquire, and on National Public Radio's This American Life, the Moth, and All Things Considered.
Cortés, Ricardo: - RICARDO CORTÉS is the #1 New York Times best-selling illustrator of Go the F**k to Sleep by Adam Mansbach and Party: A Mystery, by the acclaimed author Jamaica Kincaid. Cortés has written and illustrated books including Sea Creatures from the Sky and A Secret History of Coffee, Coca & Cola. His work has been featured in the New York Times, Vanity Fair, New York Magazine, and on CNN, Fox News, and the Late Show with David Letterman. You can see his work at Rmcortes.com, or on Twitter and Instagram at @Rmcortes. His latest work is the updated edition of It's Just a Plant.

More books by Adam Mansbach

Book Cover for: The Golem of Brooklyn, Adam Mansbach
Book Cover for: Just Try One Bite, Adam Mansbach
Book Cover for: You Have to Fucking Eat (Go the Fuck to Sleep #2), Adam Mansbach
Book Cover for: Fuck, Now There Are Two of You (Go the Fuck to Sleep #3), Adam Mansbach
Book Cover for: The Go the Fuck to Sleep Box Set: Go the Fuck to Sleep, You Have to Fucking Eat & Fuck, Now There Are Two of You, Adam Mansbach
Book Cover for: Cocoa the Tour Dog: A Children's Picture Book, Stick Figure
Book Cover for: Jake the Fake Keeps It Real, Craig Robinson
Book Cover for: Jake the Fake Goes for Laughs, Craig Robinson
Book Cover for: Jake the Fake Keeps His Cool, Craig Robinson
Book Cover for: Check the Technique: Volume 2 More Liner Notes for Hip-Hop Junkies, Brian Coleman
Book Cover for: Go de Rass to Sleep: (A Jamaican Translation), Adam Mansbach
Book Cover for: The Devil's Bag Man, Adam Mansbach
Book Cover for: Rage Is Back, Adam Mansbach
Book Cover for: I Had a Brother Once: A Poem, a Memoir, Adam Mansbach
Book Cover for: Shackling Water, Adam Mansbach
Book Cover for: Seriously, You Have to Eat, Adam Mansbach

Praise for this book

Praise for the original Go the F*** to Sleep:

Incredibly appealing. --National Public Radio

What makes this latest book seductive is not so much its profanity as its articulation of verboten thoughts . . . letting parents off the hook for their self-recrimination and guilt over bedtime seems the most cathartic tonic. --New York Times

A parenting zeitgeist . . . A phenomenon that has stunned the publishing world and may just redefine the modern 'parenting' market.
--Washington Post

Delightfully obscene. --Newsweek

Nothing has driven home a certain truth about my generation, which is approaching the apex of its childbearing years, quite like this deranged book. --The New Yorker

Perfectly timed, lightly applied touches of profanity are funny. Super funny. It's especially the case when the profanity puts words to common feelings that we aren't really allowed to own up to. Well, in that spirit comes this perfect little picture-book parody. --Booklist

Its simple genius is that it's written in the inner voice of a tired, scrambling parent and in the style of the books they have to read over and over again, which are also driving them slowly insane. --The Australian

Adam Mansbach has taken a bold step in writing a book that totally understands an unspoken part of parenthood.
--Seattle Post-Intelligencer

I can only wish that this book had been written when I was struggling through sleepless nights and ghastly bedtimes with my little dears! I think that any parent with young children will recognize the tone of voice in which this book is written--recognizing the frantic desperation and ever present guilt suffered by parents . . . Go the F*** to Sleep is a refreshing shot of reality. --BlogCritics.org

Anyone who has ever had a newborn, an infant, a baby, a toddler, a preschooler . . . oh, heck, anyone who has ever known a young child will understand the impetus behind Adam Mansbach's runaway best seller and 'children's book for adults.' --Shelf Awareness

Go the F*** To Sleep by Adam Mansbach is probably the best children's book since Goodnight Moon, and it only gets better when read by Samuel L. Jackson. --Huffington Post

Part of its appeal is the barbed send-up of a normally saccharine genre, but Go the F*** to Sleep is not, at base, a parody. It's more like what Wicked is to The Wizard of Oz--a book that tells a familiar story from the perspective of a previously marginalized character.
--New York magazine

By far the most funny, spot-on, gut-splitting picture book ever written (and that's not hyperbole), Go the F*** to Sleep made me laugh so hard I cried-from more than one orifice . . . Author Adam Mansbach is a genius. Why? Because he tells the truth and does it in such a sneaky creep-up-and-bite-you way. --New York Journal of Books

The book's underlying message is that today's parents should cut themselves some slack. --Ottawa Citizen

One book whose buzz began weeks ago and kept rising after its PDFs went viral, the wildly titled Go the F*** to Sleep . . . is still going strong. Dave Mallman, a bookseller at the Next Chapter, called it a 'stroke of genius that irreverently expresses the frustrations all parents face when dealing with our beloved but exasperating children.' --PW Daily

Studies have shown that children's sleeping patterns may dictate their parents' functioning, quality of life and marital happiness. And, given how most parents have to deal with a sleepless kid at some point--an issue for which there seem to be few easy solutions--maybe laughing a little to let off steam isn't a half-bad way to deal. --Los Angeles Times

Praise for the original Go the F*** to Sleep:

Incredibly appealing. --National Public Radio

What makes this latest book seductive is not so much its profanity as its articulation of verboten thoughts . . . letting parents off the hook for their self-recrimination and guilt over bedtime seems the most cathartic tonic. --New York Times

A parenting zeitgeist . . . A phenomenon that has stunned the publishing world and may just redefine the modern 'parenting' market.
--Washington Post

Delightfully obscene. --Newsweek

Nothing has driven home a certain truth about my generation, which is approaching the apex of its childbearing years, quite like this deranged book. --The New Yorker

Perfectly timed, lightly applied touches of profanity are funny. Super funny. It's especially the case when the profanity puts words to common feelings that we aren't really allowed to own up to. Well, in that spirit comes this perfect little picture-book parody. --Booklist

Its simple genius is that it's written in the inner voice of a tired, scrambling parent and in the style of the books they have to read over and over again, which are also driving them slowly insane. --The Australian

Adam Mansbach has taken a bold step in writing a book that totally understands an unspoken part of parenthood.
--Seattle Post-Intelligencer

I can only wish that this book had been written when I was struggling through sleepless nights and ghastly bedtimes with my little dears! I think that any parent with young children will recognize the tone of voice in which this book is written--recognizing the frantic desperation and ever present guilt suffered by parents . . . Go the F*** to Sleep is a refreshing shot of reality. --BlogCritics.org

Anyone who has ever had a newborn, an infant, a baby, a toddler, a preschooler . . . oh, heck, anyone who has ever known a young child will understand the impetus behind Adam Mansbach's runaway best seller and 'children's book for adults.' --Shelf Awareness

Go the F*** To Sleep by Adam Mansbach is probably the best children's book since Goodnight Moon, and it only gets better when read by Samuel L. Jackson. --Huffington Post

Part of its appeal is the barbed send-up of a normally saccharine genre, but Go the F*** to Sleep is not, at base, a parody. It's more like what Wicked is to The Wizard of Oz--a book that tells a familiar story from the perspective of a previously marginalized character.
--New York magazine

By far the most funny, spot-on, gut-splitting picture book ever written (and that's not hyperbole), Go the F*** to Sleep made me laugh so hard I cried-from more than one orifice . . . Author Adam Mansbach is a genius. Why? Because he tells the truth and does it in such a sneaky creep-up-and-bite-you way. --New York Journal of Books

The book's underlying message is that today's parents should cut themselves some slack. --Ottawa Citizen

One book whose buzz began weeks ago and kept rising after its PDFs went viral, the wildly titled Go the F*** to Sleep . . . is still going strong. Dave Mallman, a bookseller at the Next Chapter, called it a 'stroke of genius that irreverently expresses the frustrations all parents face when dealing with our beloved but exasperating children.' --PW Daily

Studies have shown that children's sleeping patterns may dictate their parents' functioning, quality of life and marital happiness. And, given how most parents have to deal with a sleepless kid at some point--an issue for which there seem to be few easy solutions--maybe laughing a little to let off steam isn't a half-bad way to deal. --Los Angeles Times