Seriously, Just Go to Sleep
Adam Mansbach
Ricardo Cortes

Akashic Books
March 27, 2012/ ISBN 978-1617750786
Children's (1yr+) / Social Situations - Sleep
Amazon

Reviewed by Beth E. McKenzie

I don't have children but I enjoy children's books; especially those with colorful and fanciful illustrations accompanied by lyrical text. I'm the oldest of 5 and have done my share of neighborhood babysitting, so I've read quite a few in my lifetime. On the other hand, several of my coworkers do have young children and for the last 2 years the primary water cooler conversation is about not getting any sleep. The morning after reading Seriously, Just Go to Sleep I thought I had something to add to the conversation. Was I wrong! When I started talking about this cute children's book I read the night before, they all started talking about the OTHER version. Some of them even have the audio book recorded by Samuel L. Jackson.

Just in case you haven't heard, Seriously, Just Go to Sleep, was written in response to public outcry for a G-rated version of Go the F**k to Sleep, an apparent smash hit on the parenting scene by the same author and illustrator. The juxtaposition of the sweet and profane makes the original particularly cathartic because finally somebody said in public what everybody has been saying in bedrooms (or their minds) for generations!

The pictures (possibly watercolors?) in Seriously are adorable. Sweet, happy children sleep with a variety of critters or joyfully play while the world is at rest. The colors are bright and the figures realistic. The verses are simple and rhythmic and are an equally sweet accompaniment to the illustrations. After having read both versions the verse in the child's book is less polished, but still inspired. And it is only because of the insidious suggestion of the original line that you would think there could be an alternative.

I hope to see more in this line of liberating parental verse:

Flies circle the fruit bowl,
A mosquito lands on my arm,
You've dragged half of the yard behind you,
Were you raised in an stinking barn?