The Herald puts book to the test!
The Herald decided to put the “English Roses” to the test. They gave the book to 25 pupils aged 5/6 from Strathblane Primary School near Glasgow.
Click on “read more” to read the interesting full lenght article, brought to our readers’ attention by Gugarko from our news team.
Review from “The Herald”
AT 8am GMT precisely yesterday, The English Roses blossomed simultaneously in 100 countries and 30 languages. Eat your hearts out Becks and JK. You’ve been upstaged by the ultimate self-publicist in the most over-hyped publishing event of all time. But is Madonna‘s first children’s book any good?
Two hours later, The Herald was putting the pop icon’s latest production to the ultimate test ? Mrs Brown’s class at Strathblane Primary School near Glasgow.
Her 25 Primary 2s were delighted to abandon their sums and head for the reading corner, a treat usually reserved for nearer home time. Soon these five and six-year-old bookworms were eagerly chomping The English Roses like hungry caterpillars. How did they taste?
At 48 pages, with a lot of text, it is unusually long for a picture book, a genre in which the maxim for authors is generally less is more. Though Mrs Brown is a talented reader, who puts plenty of expression into her voice and has the unnerving ability to read while showing the illustrations to her audience, she said afterwards: “I felt I started losing their interest about halfway through.”
In fact, having decided this was “a girlish book”, some boys at the back appeared to have embarked on a dramatisation of Where the Wild Things Are, before being brought sharply to book by Mrs B.
The girls were generally more attentive, craning forward to see the pictures and laughing at the occasional joke. The story is a heavily moralistic tale in which four trendy girls live a gloriously self-indulgent life of dancing, ice-skating, and sleepovers, but spurn the beautiful, lonely Binah out of jealousy. A jolly, pneumatic fairy godmother magics them off to Binah’s house where they discover the motherless girl lives a life of Cinderella-style drudgery and sleeps in a bare-floored attic room. Soon The English Roses are helping Binah with the chores and even inviting her to tea.
Unsurprisingly, the children were quick to spot the message about misplaced jealousy: “We should be nice to other people,” said five-year-old Tyler. All nodded and murmured when asked if they had ever felt jealous and giggled at the mention of the godmother’s bottom, the only remotely rude reference in the book.
The boys all said they would not choose this book at the library because they didn’t think it was for them. In fairness, it isn’t. The English Roses is the first of five children’s books by the star and is unashamedly girly. The second, Mr Peabody’s Apples, due out in November, is for the lads.
Each book will have a different illustrator. Jeffrey Fulvimari, better known as a fashion designer, has done a wonderful job and if this book does end up a classic, it will probably be because of him.
Of our 25 human guinea-pigs, 18 said the pictures were what they most liked about the book. Six-year-old Juliette Lemoine, who is bilingual, cleverly noticed something already picked up elsewhere. These chic girls, with their skinny arms and legs and outsized pretty heads, look more French than English. In fact, Gallimard, the French publishers, are expecting huge sales, despite the English theme. (Madonna’s daughter attends a French-speaking school in London and The English Roses is loosely based on her and her friends.)
What did these five-year-olds and six-year-olds know about Madonna, who seems to have been a star forever? Though most had heard of her, only six thought they could recognise her from a picture and only one ventured an opinion. Six-year-old Olivia screwed up her face at the name because she had seen the singer’s controversial on-screen embrace with Britney Spears.
In their publicity yesterday, Puffin compared The English Roses with the greatest names on their list: Roald Dahl, Raymond Briggs, Anne Fine, and Eoin Colfer. Frankly, this is an insult. The English Roses is beautiful to look at but lacks both the distilled poetic brilliance of the best picture books and the subtlety and character development you would expect from the best children’s fiction.
In recent years Madonna, a famously lapsed Catholic, has taken to wearing a red thread around her wrist to signify a follower of Kabbalah. It is intended to protect her from “negative energies”.
“If we truly believed that the negative energy you create by talking badly about somebody is a small form of murder, we’d never do it again,” she told one interviewer.
This hasn’t hampered her from dismissing other children’s literature as “vapid and vacant” and offering “no lessons in life”.
She says she started writing her five books, each apparently based on a Hebrew text she has encountered through Kabbalah, after reading to her six-year-old daughter Lourdes (she now calls her Lola) and finding “there’s, like, no books about anything”.
This assertion will come as a surprise to parents, teachers, and librarians who find no shortage of quality literature to encourage young children to confront ethical issues, while offering an enjoyable read.
Kathryn Ross, one of Scotland’s two reading czars, said yesterday: “I don’t think there have ever been so many thoughtful well-written books for the six and over age group.”
We list 12 of her favourites. “It’s a shame Madonna doesn’t appear to know about them,” says Ms Ross.
Madonna is following a well-trodden path. Anyone can get their children’s book published if they are prepared to pay, but celebrities don’t need to bother. Their names are so valuable in brand terms that publishers will vie to sign them up, regardless of the quality of their work. Is it the mark two version of vanity publishing?
Celebrities who have fancied themselves as children’s authors include The Prince of Wales, The Duchess of York, and actress Nanette Newman. Perhaps the most charitable thing one can say about Madonna’s new career move is that all the proceeds from her books will go to good causes.
The English Roses by Madonna, ill. Jeffrey Fulvimari (Puffin £12.99).
The Children Have Their Say
Erin Cherry, 6: I liked the way the pictures were drawn. The English Roses have these skinny arms and legs and big heads with huge eyes.
Olivia El-Attar, 6: Did Madonna write that? I know who she is. I’ve seen her singing on TV. She was on with Britney Spears and at the end she kissed her. That bit was yukky!
Jamie Stewart, 5: I enjoy stories that have messages about what’s good and bad and I liked this one. It’s a good story to read out loud.
Tyler Sams, 5: This story tells us that we should be nice to to other people.
Jack Fryer, 6: It’s a nice story but this book is too girlish for me. I’d never choose it at the library.
Juliette Lemoine, 6: The story was alright but I wouldn’t recommend it. The pictures are like ones in some French books I have at home. They’re pretty.
Eilidh MacGilp, 6: I especially loved the pictures. I liked them more than the story. There are so many lovely colours.