by Karin E. Westman

About Karin E. Westman

Karin E. Westman is Associate Professor and Department Head of English at Kansas State University, where she also teaches and conducts research on twentieth- and twenty-first-century British literature, including children’s and young adult literatures and women’s literature. Her next book will be Harry Potter in Context: J. K. Rowling’s Library. With Naomi Wood and David Russell, she has served as the co-editor of Lion and the Unicorn since 2008.

Genre

book Keywords for Children's Literature

The January/February 2012 issue of Poets and Writers magazine recounts the “Cinderella” publishing tale of novelist Adam Mansbach, independent publisher Johnny Temple of Akashic Books, and the unexpected success of their Go the Fuck to Sleep (2011). Mansbach’s book is alternately described by its author, publisher, and readers as “an illustrated children’s book” (85), a New York Times best seller (85), “the go-to gag gift for your cool best friend’s baby shower” (85), “a popular gift book” (86), and “a novelty book” (89). Having gone through “seven printings and earned revenues of more than two million dollars in its first three months” (88), Go the Fuck to Sleep occupies one of several cultural spaces, including one titled “profane children’s bed-time books.”