Give It A Rest Already

This post was first published as “Whatever You Thing About ‘Go the F**k to Sleep,’ Leave the Jews Out of It” on The Shmooze blog of the Forward.

No one is going to get any shut-eye if people don’t give the controversy over Adam Mansbach’s “Go the F**k to Sleep” a rest. But hey, what could be more fun than staying up all night, debating the merits of a brilliant profanity-laced picture book whose popularity is exceeding its author’s wildest dreams?

Now — following coverage of the pages leaked pre-publication, the book’s actual launch and the subsequent release of the audio version by Samuel L. Jackson — comes a flurry of commentary and analysis.

Late last week, we were treated to Deborah Kolben’s takedown of Katie Roiphe’s essay on the book for Slate. Kolben, editor of the Jewish parenting website Kveller.com, took aim at Roiphe’s assertion that the real takeaway from the book is that parents today devote themselves too much to their children, denying their need for adult time and activities together, including — yes — lots more sex. “But if those sweet-faced children, so gorgeously drawn by Ricardo Cortés, could talk back would they say: ‘Put on a fucking dress. Have a fucking drink. Stop hovering over us. Live your own goddamned life,’” Roiphe wrote.

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© 2011 Renee Ghert-Zand. All rights reserved.