Seriously, You Have to Eat

August 3, 2015
Capitalizing on the success of his first picture book parody, Go the F**k to Sleep, Mansbach provides a cleaned-up version of its sequel, You Have to F**king Eat, a snarky takedown of juvenile eating habits (or the lack thereof). It must be asked, though: why remove the obscenities from a book aimed squarely at adults? A change like “How the hell are you growing/ when you basically don’t f***** eat?” to “How the heck are you growing/ When you basically don’t ever eat?” is merely cosmetic. And although the punch line, “For me a scotch, neat,” gets an allusive substitution (“For me, a drink that smells like peat”), the page retains its image of a child clinking her glass of milk with the parent’s tumbler. Brozman’s slick, Rotoscope-style spreads show many different adorably pouting children of various ethnicities refusing to eat. This at least lends a little inclusiveness to the verse, whose restaurant-dining, asparagus-eating paternal voice addresses only its own child. This is not a kid-friendly version of the book; it’s merely the original with the fun taken out of it. All ages.

August 15, 2015
Cleaned-up vocabulary makes You Have to Fucking Eat (2014) palatable for a child audience-but it's still a picture book for adults. Just as Mansbach followed up on the success of Go the Fuck to Sleep (2011) with its tamer companion, Seriously, Just Go to Sleep (2012), this title is billed as "the children's version" of its more colorfully titled counterpart. While the absence of f-bombs will make most adults more inclined to share it with their finicky progeny, the voice remains one of adult exasperation, not childish agency or transformation. The ethnically diverse children depicted in Brozman's digital illustrations doggedly refuse all entreaties and pleas to eat-not one caves and tries something or decides to like it, a la Sam I Am's antagonist in Seuss' picky-eating classic, or otherwise takes the story's reins. That's all well and good, but it relegates the text to the domain of adult venting, which undermines its status as "the children's version." In a mildly clever call-back to the prior books about going to sleep, the closing lines admit failure in nourishing the fussy child and then say, "But on the bright side, maybe this is the night / You seriously just go to sleep." Will this series be put to bed now? Or will other parenting travails provoke yet more cathartically crass titles and toned-down companions? Seriously, please stop. (Picture book. 3-5)

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October 1, 2015

K-Gr 2-While Mansbach is keenly aware of the common disagreements that occur between parents and children, his point of view is purely adult. Like his earlier picture book about going to sleep-a juvenile version of his irreverent adult book-this mealtime plea is appropriately sanitized for the intended audience. Unfortunately, Mansbach's talents do not shine when the author employs spanking clean language, and in addition to maintaining an obviously grown-up perspective, his rhyming is bland, awkward, and forced. "Oh, now you're hungry? Tough luck, kitchen's closed./Have some warm milk. For me a drink that smells like peat./Pancakes? Yeah, right. It's bedtime, child, /It's way, way too late now to eat." Children of different ethnicities are shown throughout, which does suggest that eating issues are universal, and an array of cute animals are presented to contrast their reliable feeding traits with the habits of the more obstinate kids. The illustrations are humorous, and some children may giggle in recognizing their own mealtime behavior. But the chuckles are more likely to come from those weary parents who face this particular daily struggle. VERDICT Unless serving a mature population, take a pass on this one for the sake of the kids.-Gloria Koster, West School, New Canaan, CT

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