Orange and black tigers sleeping on the cover of "Go The F**k Sleep."

It seems that the little guy is never going to catch a break when there’s a bully loafing nearby. In a recent Publisher’s Weekly article Jean Feiwel of Feiwel and Friends, that little subgroup of the tiny publishing  conglomerate named Macmillan, put on her most disconcerted frown and called out Johnny Temple and Akashic for their runaway bestseller, Go The F**k To Sleep. Feiwel wasn’t preachy about swear-words in a kids book though, but rather she accused Temple’s press of lifting one of her books by way of  theme and art concepts, and merely turning it “on its head” in order to market it as original. In this case parody is a rather nice way of accusing someone of plagiarism, you know, without all that nasty legal stuff.  Publisher’s Weekly writes:

Jean Feiwel, senior v-p and director of Macmillan Children’s Publishing and publisher of Feiwel and Friends and Square Fish, expresses amazement that no one has publicly picked up on the similarities between the two books. “The moment I saw Go the F**k to Sleep, after I stopped laughing, I said, ‘Wait a minute!’ This is clearly a parody of It’s Time to Sleep, My Love,” she says. “Except for the profanity laced throughout, the book has the same kind of lilting lullaby as Eric’s, and the art style is the same as Nancy’s. I can’t believe no one has made the connection.”

One of the similarities that Feiwel points to is the tiger illustrations invoked by both books, which opens up a fascinating pocket door in the history of the literary commons. Yann Martel had already won the 2001 Man-Booker before a handful of critics started talking about how his bestselling Life of Pi resembled more than a little the work of Jewish-Brazilian writer, Moacyr Scliar. Both books rely on a formative encounter with a tiger at sea, on a raft, as a major point of the plot. Life of Pi was a big-house gem though, and Sliar’s similarly themed tiger-raft story, Max and The Cats, was long out-of-print and therefore awards committees, editors and readers alike should not worry about missing one of literature’s more obvious misappropriations in recent history. There was enough wiggle room in the comparison to allow Martel a quick declaration of Scliar-based inspiration and then let Knopf’ do the rest of the work smoothing over the potential problem. It’s not like the Man-Booker folk were going to draw attention to their less than stellar acumen that year.

Orange and black tiger sleeping from inside "It's Time To Sleep."

One of those concepts, that of slick marketing spin, brings us to the heart of Feiwel’s comments. The Macmillan title she claims was the foundation from which Go The F**k to Sleep was based upon, certainly shares some resemblance by way of artwork and rhetorical style, but in the end both books are clearly coming from different origins and one has to wonder about how many kids books can be said to resemble one another to begin with. The tiger after all, will more than likely be rendered in orange and black.

For his part, Johnny Temple replied to the story by stating that he was surprised by the comparison:

“That’s bizarre. In fact, I know specifically what led to the sleeping tigers picture, and it had nothing to do with another book.” The publisher says that foreign rights to Go the F**k to Sleep have sold to 11 countries, “with another seven offers on the table. This book really strikes a chord with parents around the word. It provides a humorous outlet for them and lets them understand they’re not alone.”

After tallying all the angles you arrive at the sum realization that Feiwel was merely attaching her book to the publicity surrounding the Akashic runaway. This would be fine, and certainly not unheard of, if it was not already made ironic by her loose accusations. It’s sad that a big publisher feels the need to debase a small one in their attempt to hitch an already successful book to an upstart new title.

And whatever, they were both copying Kipling’s Jungle Book, which in turn was ripping off William Blake’s “The Tyger.” Both are works that have at times utilized an eerily similar image of, get this, an orange and black tiger.