Madonna Teaches Children A Lesson

Madonna’s first children’s book is hardly groundbreaking but it is not a bad effort.
If you look at picture books for the young, you will notice they can often be puzzling or peculiar. Sometimes, a slightly unnerving event may be portrayed. Into this field steps Madonna, where the rich and famous have trod before.

Think of Prince Charles and his Old Man of Lochnagar or Sarah Ferguson and her Budgie books. It is not that difficult to come up with a little story that will please a young child. In The English Roses, Madonna tells one such simple story of four girls who behave badly towards another girl because she is beautiful.

The illustrations seem quite grown-up
Only when they learn that she is, in effect, a Cinderella, slaving away cooking and cleaning, do they come to realise that they can and should be kind to her. In telling the story, Madonna takes on the voice of a slightly bossy teacher, telling her readers to not interrupt and to listen carefully. If you are a fan of Madonna, this is an interesting tone – the controversial pop queen giving a lesson in how to be a good person. Quite a thought in itself.

The pictures are a big surprise. Jeffrey Fulvimari’s illustrations are a mix between Disney and the latest clothes adverts. Doe-eyed babes with skinny-chic legs and little bow lips mince their way through the pages. It is not easy to read thoughts or moods from their faces and bodies. Presumably the publishers and Madonna think this style will make the book mammothly commercial. With this in mind, I do not see how The English Roses, and the four books to follow, can possibly fail.

But is the book any good? All I can grasp is that it will not do anyone any harm. It may not have the ingenuity and charm of Laurent De Brunhoff’s Babar or the deep and wild imagination of Maurice Sendak but when you are Madonna, it probably does not matter.

Source: Michael Rosen BBC News online

Thanks to Gugarko