Two Words for You Kid: F*king Sleep!

Growing up, bedtime stories were a nightly ritual for my siblings and me. Many of those children’s books, I’m realizing, had a recurrent sleep theme. The glossy covers were saturated with an indigo/dark-blue color-scheme, there was a prevalence of graphically depicted moons and stars, and the words themselves formed a hypnotic chant of soft sounds repeating over and over again. There was Agatha’s Feather Bed, Goodnight Moon, and my inexplicable favorite, The Napping House, among others. All of them revolved around the task of going to sleep.

As an adult I’m more able to decode the parental subtext beneath all those gentle words and nocturnal settings. My mother, all parents really, had just one message to convey with these bedtime stories: Go the Fuck to Sleep! This succinct interpretation is the title of Adam Mansbach’s new ‘children’s book for adults.’

Here’s the best part, according to me:

I know you’re not thirsty! That’s bullshit, stop lying. Lie the fuck down, my darling.

The child’s sudden urge to hydrate is just a ploy, but as Samuel L. Jackson learns, resistance is futile.

Sure! Fine! Whatever! I’ll bring you some milk. Who the fuck cares? You’re not gonna sleep.

Besides Jackson’s brilliant reading, there was a New York Public Library event during which both Werner Herzog and Judah Friedlander each voiced the text.

FYI: the cover of Go the Fuck to Sleep has an illustration of a toddler sleeping next to a family of tigers. Above, the full moon obscures the letters ‘u’ and ‘c’ in the word ‘Fuck’. Totally resembles every bedtime book in history. I wonder how many people will maybe accidentally buy it for their children. They should definitely buy it for themselves.