http://www.usatoday.com/l...book_x.htm

Madonna's children's book bombards world market

By Deirdre Donahue, USA TODAY

Children's books and Madonna. Hard to envision a less likely pairing. Yet today, 1 million copies of her The English Roses will be released in more than 100 countries and 30 languages, the largest simultaneous global release of a book.

Aimed at the 6-and-up crowd, the 48-page, $19.95 book is illustrated by American fashion illustrator Jeffrey Fulvimari. Distributed in the USA by Viking/Penguin, it is published by Callaway Editions.

The book explores feelings of envy and jealousy among a group of 11-year-old girls in contemporary England, and there are autobiographical elements to the theme. The 45-year-old pop icon, whose mother died when she was young, told London's Times Saturday that as a child she "felt very awkward and out of place in school. Not popular, not attractive, not special in any way and I was longing for love and approval from someone."

The book also draws on Madonna's study of the mystical Jewish Kabbalah teachings. Proceeds will go to the Los Angeles-based Spirituality for Kids Foundation.

AOL Time Warner Book Group CEO Laurence Kirshbaum is one of the few outsiders who has seen The EnglishRoses, the first in a completed five-book series. (The second, Mr. Peabody's Apples, arrives Nov. 10.) Kirshbaum was the U.S. publisher of Madonna's 1992 controversial photo essay, Sex. Featuring Madonna in the buff before she had children Lourdes, 6, and Rocco, 3, or married Brit director Guy Ritchie, the book sold close to 2 million copies worldwide. Roses displays Madonna's "consistent ability to reinvent herself," says Kirshbaum, citing her transformation from sex kitten to maternal oracle.

A celebrity's name on the cover, however, is no guarantee of success. Jamie Lee Curtis, John Lithgow, Bill Cosby and Will Smith have made their mark in children's publishing, but other celebrities have not. Recent books by Katie Couric and Lynne Cheney did not do as well. American Library Association spokeswoman Barbara Genco suspects the primary market for Madonna's book will be avid adult fans. No doubt they will be tuning in Tuesday when Madonna is scheduled to appear on The Oprah Winfrey Show.

"Publishers encourage (celebrities) to write children's books," notes Roger Sutton, the editor of The Horn Book, which reviews children's literature. "What message are you sending? You can't write a real book, so you can write a children's book?"

Sutton says creating a good children's book is difficult because "you have to do a lot more with a lot fewer words."

Smelling media manipulation, Sutton asks, "Swapping spit with Britney Spears on MTV, what was that all about?" But he doubts there will be much controversy about Roses. "She's just not that big a deal anymore."

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That last line is just ... ouch!

Peace, David

that last line is a real zinger


or it would be, except...


well, i've found that reporters don't call people for the "expert" opinion in a field, asking for comments, on people and things that are "not that big a deal anymore"

AaronMaximus said:

What a jealous prick. He reviews baby books, so what does that say? I'd hate to say it but I'll probably but this book.

ALL PROCEEDS GO TO CHARITY

with a million copies shipped and all the press, that's a whole bunch of money gonna be donated. cheers madonna.

in that same article, doesn't madonna discuss having another child? she says something like her (menstrual)cycle's all off because of her exercising and she needs to discuss the possibility of having another child with her doctors.

iwishyouheaven said:

She certainly doesn't need the money...lol

AaronMaximus said:

Exactly.In the past year,i've heard so many critics insist that Madonna is no longer relevent,that nobody cares about her,etc.But yet,there they are,discussing her...lol

i bought it for my niece. and another copy for me. it's quite fun, actually.

DavidEye said:

it's like that article in US magazine back in 1994, after the infamous Letterman appearance, proclaiming all the ways in which she was over, and why, and how uninteresting she had become.

i'm not surprised it was printed, but surely there was an editor somewhere at US that had the thought "you don't write 3000 word essays on why something is no longer worth talking about."


if it's over, everyone knows it's over, and you don't discuss it because it's a given and no one's thinking about it. the fact that someone is being asked about her, and replies "she's no longer relevant" or a "bid deal" means, in fact, that she apparently is.