Nursery rhymes don’t always work. Counting sheep doesn’t either. Tell a kid to imagine sleeping on a bed of cotton candy and he will get a sugar high at the thought of it. Unicorns, Easy-Bake Ovens, dancing frogs, dinosaurs playing tennis … Can you tell I’m not a parent?
Well, whatever your go-to lullaby or nursery rhyme is, I’m sure it gets old. And it’s probably hard to stick to a story when your kid is crying, peeing the bed, pulling out your hair, and doing whatever other frightening things toddlers do to their parents nowadays. I haven’t tried to tell a story about a family of bears raising a child while a two-year-old claws at my mouth, but I guarantee you I couldn’t do it.
Clearly, this is what Adam Mansbach had in mind when he wrote Go the Fuck to Sleep, a book Jonathan Lethem called “Total genius.” A.J. Jacobs said, “This is the most honest children’s book ever written. And it’s f*cking hilarious.”
It’s a 32-page picture book set to be released on October 11. Here’s a sample:
The cats nestle close to their kittens now.
The lambs have laid down with the sheep.
You’re cozy and warm in your bed, my dear
Please go the fuck to sleep.
Amazon describes it as “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 off to dreamland.”
So, no, parents, this isn’t a book to actually read to your children. It’s a book to get for your friends who have kids. Your friends who, you know, really just want to say it.