‘Goodnight Moon’ It Ain’t

This is a story about a very unusual kind of children’s book — or rather, a book that looks a lot like a children’s book until you read the fine print, at which time it becomes apparent that author Adam Mansbach actually wrote “Go the Fuck to Sleep” for exasperated and insufficiently rested parents like he once was.

Mansbach was able to transform his frustration into publishing gold, if the book’s advance buzz is any indication. Bonus: The illustrations are beautiful, too. –KA

The Bay Citizen:

“My daughter sleeps fine now, but she used to take upwards of two hours to go to bed,” Mansbach, who lives in the Bay Area but is currently finishing a two-year appointment at Rutgers University in New Jersey, said in a phone interview. “It becomes very frustrating.”

Mansbach’s online friends responded so positively to that off-the-cuff post, however, that he decided to write some verses for the imaginary book, which he now describes as a “children’s book for adults.”

Enlisting his friend Ricardo Cortés, an illustrator, and the independent publisher Akashic Books in New York, Mansbach spent a good chunk of last year making that Facebook whim a reality.

And then, seemingly out of nowhere, the book went viral.

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