Product Description

Have you ever heard of the English Roses? Here is what they are not; A box of chocolates. A football team. Flowers growing in the garden. What they are is this: the fastest selling picture book EVER! The world famous picture book is now available in paperback for the first time. With hardback sales of 165,000 copies in the UK alone, The English Roses is a publishing phenomenon. With it's high production values, well-received storyline and fabulous artwork, it's a picture book that deserves it's place at the top of the bestseller charts.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #32001 in Books
• Published on: 2005-11-01
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: .46 pounds
• Binding: Hardcover
• 48 pages

From Amazon.co.uk
Madonna hangs up her material-girl cloak to teach children the importance of looking beyond a surface sheen. In The English Roses, the superstar's children's book debut, four little girls (the roses in question) "play the same games, read the same books, and like the same boys".

Nicole, Amy, Charlotte and Grace all love to dance the monkey and the tickety-boo... and they all are horribly jealous of Binah, the perfect, beautiful, smart, kind girl who lives nearby. Even though they know Binah is lonely, she makes them sick. They would say "Let's pretend we don't see her when she walks by", and even "Let's push her into the lake!" The pleasantly bossy narrator explains "And that is what they did. No, silly, not the lake part, the pretending not to see her part".

One night, however, the four girls all have the same dream that sets them straight. A fairy godmother sprinkles them with fairy dust and takes them to spy on Binah. When they see that she lives alone with her father, slaving away night and day at household chores, the four girly grumblers feel very sorry for her. The fairy scolds them: "... in the future, you might think twice before grumbling that someone else has a better life than you." And they do.

This morality tale is nothing new under the sun, but it is cleverly told, with many teaspoonfuls of good humour. Jeffrey Fulvimari's illustrations are no less than stunning, filling every page with vivacious black ink lines and gorgeous watercolour reminiscent of 1960s fashion sketches. Children will enjoy this don't-hate-me-because-I'm-beautiful story that celebrates friendship as much as it teaches compassion. It's recommended for ages six and above. --Karin Snelson

From School Library Journal
Grade 3-6-In yet another change of public persona, Madonna turns Mother-Knows-Best moralist with a tale aimed at preteens, though packaged in picture-book format. Responding to an admonition from one of their mothers, and with additional guidance from a fairy godmother, four young fashion plates at a sleepover simultaneously dream that a classmate, ostracized because of her extreme beauty, has to do all the household chores because her mum is dead. When this actually turns out to be true, the four guiltily invite Binah into their circle, and surprise, surprise, soon they're all thick as thieves. An unseen narrator delivers this rough-hewn story in a conversational, "listen to me, I'm telling you this for your own good," tone, breaking in distractingly several times to make sure that readers are paying attention. Reflecting a background in fashion art, Fulvimari places skinny lasses with oversized eyes, dressing and posing as if they've stepped from the pages of a department store catalog, against visually bewildering expanses of scribbled filigree or loudly patterned wallpaper. All in all, this overproduced episode, the first of a projected series, will have to rely on hype rather than content or presentation to find a readership.
John Peters, New York Public Library
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
K-Gr. 2. Why, it seems like only yesterday that Madonna was showing off her jiggly bits in her first publishing effort, Sex (1992). Now she has lowered the age of her target audience to the under-eight set with this first book in a series of five, this one featuring a multicolor quartet of girls who are "practically glued to each other at the hip." A girl they do not like is Binah, who is too pretty and too perfect. Enter Nicole's mother, who in a little speech for which the word didactic was invented, tells them that poor, lonely Binah could use a friend. At a sleepover, the Roses dream the same dream: a fairy godmother takes them to Binah's house, where she must do all the chores, Cinderella-like, because her mother is dead! Would any of the girls want to trade places with her now? Well, no. Awake, the Roses resolve to be kinder, stop complaining, and help Binah with her many chores. In the acknowledgements, Madonna thanks two people for sharing the secrets of storytelling with her. Apparently, they were holding back the part about originality. What is fun are Fulvimari's illustrations, wild squiggly lines brushed with color featuring English Roses who look like the popular Bratz dolls. But the poor illustrator gets neither a thank you nor even a brief bio on the flap copy. The next book in the series, Mr. Peabody's Apples, will appear in November. Perhaps it will be about a girl who learns how to share. Ilene Cooper
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