A-fucking-dorable: Go the Fuck to Sleep

Go the Fuck to Sleep, written by Adam Mansbach, began life as a random comment on Facebook. Friends encouraged Mansbach to write it, and he began with a few verses.

The illustrations were completed by a friend, Ricardo Cortes, and they found a publisher, Akashic Books, and it shortly went viral, reaching number 1 on Amazon.com a month before it went on sale.

It’s drawn some criticism for exposing “yuppie parents’ sexlessness, self-pity, and repressed rage” (ouch). Others manage to find endearment even in the awkward rhymes, and the evolution of fuck’s literary freedom.

I’m not a parent, but I’ve spent enough time watching other people’s kids to sympathize with the sentiments expressed:

The owls fly forth from the treetops.
Through the air, they soar and they sweep.
A hot crimson rage fills my heart, love.
For real, shut the fuck up and sleep.

Cortes’ illustrations are gorgeous, depicting lambs, kittens, tiny mice, fuzzy lions and tigers – all slumbering peacefully, save for the wide eyed cherubic children who refuse, of course, to go the fuck to sleep.

Samuel L Jackson narrated the book for Audible.com, where it is free to download. The audio and text has been put together in various places on YouTube. For your viewing and listening pleasure, I’ve linked to it behind the cut:

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