Table of Contents

___________________

Cover

Dedication

You Have to Fucking Eat

About the Contributors

Also Available from Adam Mansbach and Akashic Books

Copyright & Credits

For Vivien and Olivia
 The sunrise is golden and lovely,
The birds chirp and twitter and tweet,
You woke me and asked for some breakfast,
So why the fuck won’t you eat?
 The bunnies are munching on carrots,
The lambs nibble grasses and bleat.
I know you’re too hungry to reason with but
You have to fucking eat.
 Your cute little tummy is rumbling
And pancakes are your favorite treat.
I’m kind of surprised that you suddenly hate them.
That’s bullshit. Stop lying and eat.
The giraffes pluck the tender young leaves up,
The mice snack on seeds and on wheat.
No, sweetheart, I can’t make spaghetti,
The fucking meal’s served. Time to eat.
If we were both pandas I’d know what to feed you,
But seafood is scary, we’re leery of meat.
Half the food at the market is probably toxic,
But fuck it, you still have to eat.
You’re not finished, and no, you can’t go to school
In pajamas, a hat, and bare feet.
Whatever, put shoes on and bring me your plate,
My whole diet’s the shit you won’t eat.
The sloth and the lemur, the chipmunk and cheetah,
The slow and the sleek and the fleet
Share one thing, my love: they make less of a mess
Than you fucking do when they eat.
 How was school, hon? Whoa, your lunch box is full.
How are you not passed out in the street?
How is it you’re smart? How the hell are you growing
When you basically don’t fucking eat?
You know who loves dinner? The duck-billed platypus.
But I know I’m facing defeat.
This spoon-feeding shit makes me wonder
Why the fuck we weaned you from the teat.
 I hope you know it’s super-special
To go to a restau— Hey, back in your seat.
You shitting me? This whole menu’s crap to you
But a roll on the floor—that you’ll eat?
Yum, this looks great. Five big bites, my darling.
Fine. Three, but don’t try to cheat.
A lot of kids don’t get asparagus,
Show some fucking respect for them. Eat.
Oh, now you’re hungry? Tough shit, kitchen’s closed.
Have some warm milk. For me a scotch, neat.
Pancakes? Yeah, right. It’s bedtime, child,
It’s too goddamn late now to eat.
 Okay. One pancake and that’s it,
You’re exhausting and I’m fucking beat.
And tomorrow we’ve got to rise early as roosters
To fight more about what to eat.
 I’m pretty sure that you’re malnourished
And scurvied. My failure’s complete.
But on the bright side, maybe this is the night
You’ll go the fuck to sleep.
 About the Contributors

Adam Mansbach is the author of the #1 international best seller Go the

Fuck to Sleep, as well as the novels Rage Is Back, Angry Black White Boy,
The Dead Run, and The End of the Jews, winner of the California Book
Award. He has written for the New Yorker, the New York Times, Esquire, the
Believer, and National Public Radio’s All Things Considered. His daughter
Vivien is six.

www.AdamMansbach.com

Owen Brozman has illustrated for National Geographic, Time Out New
York, Scholastic, Ninja Tune, Definitive Jux, and numerous other clients.
He and Mansbach’s previous collaboration is the acclaimed graphic novel
Nature of the Beast, and his work has been recognized by the Society of
Illustrators of Los Angeles, Creative Quarterly journal, 3x3 magazine, and
many more. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife and daughter,
whose favorite food is bananas.

www.OwenBrozman.com
 Also Available from
ADAM MANSBACH
and AKASHIC BOOKS
 Go the Fuck to Sleep by Adam Mansbach
illustrations by Ricardo Cortés

________________

“A new bible for weary parents.” —New York Times

“The mother of all children’s books.” —Today Show

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

“An anthem for profane parents.” —Time

“Incredibly appealing.” —National Public Radio

“A parenting zeitgeist . . . A phenomenon that has stunned the publishing

world and may just redefine the modern ‘parenting’ market.” —
Washington Post

“Delightfully obscene.” —Newsweek

“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

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 Cortés, Go the Fuck to Sleep is beautiful,

subversive, and pants-wettingly funny—a book for parents new, old, and
expectant. You probably should not read it to your children.
Adam Mansbach is the author of the #1 international best seller Go the
Fuck to Sleep, as well as the novels Rage Is Back, Angry Black White Boy,
The Dead Run, and The End of the Jews, winner of the California Book
Award. He has written for the New Yorker, the New York Times, Esquire, the
Believer, and National Public Radio’s All Things Considered. His daughter
Vivien is six.

Ricardo Cortés has illustrated books about electricity, marijuana, and a

history of coffee, cocaine, and Coca-Cola. His work has been featured in
the New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, the Village Voice, the San
Francisco Chronicle, and on CNN and FOX News. He lives in Brooklyn,
where he is working on a book about a shark.

Go the Fuck to Sleep is available in hardcover from our website and in

bookstores everywhere. The e-book edition is available wherever e-books
are sold.
 Seriously, Just Go to Sleep by Adam Mansbach
illustrations by Ricardo Cortés

________________

The children’s version of the #1 New York Times best-selling classic!

“Now there’s a version, complete with more of the gorgeous, yet weirdly
subversive illustrations. 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

“From the team that touched off the irreverent humor trend Go the F**k to
Sleep, author Adam Mansbach and illustrator Ricardo Cortés, comes a new
kid-friendly version of their instant comic classic. Seriously, Just Go to
Sleep brings children in on the joke, helping them understand their own
tactics and why their parents just want them to go . . . to sleep.” —
Publishers Weekly

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.”

Adam Mansbach is the author of the #1 international best seller Go the

Fuck to Sleep, as well as the novels Rage Is Back, Angry Black White Boy,
The Dead Run, and The End of the Jews, winner of the California Book
Award. He has written for the New Yorker, the New York Times, Esquire, the
Believer, and National Public Radio’s All Things Considered. His daughter
Vivien is six.

Ricardo Cortés has illustrated books about electricity, marijuana, and a

history of coffee, cocaine, and Coca-Cola. His work has been featured in
the New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, the Village Voice, the San
Francisco Chronicle, and on CNN and FOX News. He lives in Brooklyn,
where he is working on a book about a shark.

Seriously, Just Go to Sleep is available in hardcover from our website and

in bookstores everywhere. The e-book edition is available wherever e-
books are sold.
 Go de Rass to Sleep by Adam Mansbach
illustrations by Ricardo Cortés
translated by Kwame Dawes and Kellie Magnus

________________

A Jamaican patois translation of the New York Times, Amazon.com, and

Wall Street Journal number one best seller and worldwide phenomenon.

“No matter what the country or the language, parents all over the world—
loving, frustrated, exhausted parents—know what Adam Mansbach means.
 Since 2011, his comically obscene picture book has sold more than 1.5
million copies in dozens of languages from Afrikaans to Japanese to
Nynorsk. And later this year, his little book will venture into new territory
with a Jamaican patois translation.” —The Washington Post/Style Blog

“This version of Adam Mansbach’s profane, affectionate, and radically

honest book will remind whole new audiences about the absurdities of
parenting. Just don’t read it to the kids.” —Advocate.com, The 20 Greatest
New Father’s Day Gifts

The best-selling Go the F*** to Sleep has been translated into over thirty
languages worldwide. Now it is finally translated for Jamaican and other
Caribbean parents of the world.

Go de Rass 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 Cortés, Go de Rass to Sleep is beautiful,

subversive, and pants-wettingly funny—a book for parents new, old, and
expectant. You probably should not read it to your children.

Adam Mansbach is the author of the #1 international best seller Go the

Fuck to Sleep, as well as the novels Rage Is Back, Angry Black White Boy,
The Dead Run, and The End of the Jews, winner of the California Book
Award. He has written for the New Yorker, the New York Times, Esquire, the
Believer, and National Public Radio’s All Things Considered. His daughter
Vivien is six.

Ricardo Cortés has illustrated books about electricity, marijuana, and a

history of coffee, cocaine, and Coca-Cola. His work has been featured in
the New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, the Village Voice, the San
Francisco Chronicle, and on CNN and FOX News. He lives in Brooklyn,
where he is working on a book about a shark.

Kwame Dawes born a Ghana an grow inna Jamaica. Im write bout eighteen
book a poetry, nuff storybook, an some serious true-life book too. Im edit
one heap a poetry antalogy. Im las book name Duppy Conqueror, weh jus
come out inna merica.www.KwameDawes.com

Kellie Magnus a one Jamaican oman weh write book fe pickney. A she
write de Little Lion book dem an de fus baby book fe Jamaican pickney.
Har nex book name Happy Harry and the Hah Hah Song.
www.Jackmandora.com

Go de Rass to Sleep is available in hardcover from our website and in

bookstores everywhere. The e-book edition is available wherever e-books
are sold.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, by any means, including
mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the
prior written consent of the publisher.

Published by Akashic Books

Words ©2014 Adam Mansbach
Illustrations ©2014 Owen Brozman

ISBN-13: 978-1-61775-378-7
eISBN: 978-1-61775-379-4

Akashic Books
Twitter: @AkashicBooks
Facebook: AkashicBooks
info@akashicbooks.com
www.akashicbooks.com