12 September 2007

The English Roses



Author: Madonna
Illustrator: Jeffrey Fulvimari

4 snooty fashionista teens shun a young classmate because she is too pretty. They make wild assumptions about her based on her looks but (with the help of a particularly bitchy fairy) the 4 girls soon come to see the error of their ways. They learn that pretty girls can have it hard too. (Roll credits and cue the uplifting Kelly Clarkson song!)

The lesson here is an old one: Do not judge a book by its cover. The fact that parents would even consider buying a children's book from an author who once dressed like this:



shows that people are capable of looking past a book's cover... unless, of course, the book is Madonna's Sex which cost a gazillion dollars and came wrapped in a cellophane package. That made it significantly harder to look past the cover, especially if you were under 18 and broke when it came out.

Forward Progress? Note: It is interesting that that book caused such a firestorm of controversy when it first came out in 1994... because by today's standards, the images are actually rather quaint. You'll see more sex in any mainstream grocery store magazine and even today's Abercrombie & Fitch catalogues are more provocative and show more skin.

And the Abercrombie & Fitch website is downright dirty. Seriously, do not click on the site's A&F New Faces link unless you are over 18. (Here is the link. Warning: Kids, Look away. Adults, Do not watch while at work. I didn't want to link to it, but had to because it is so completely ridiculous. When did pornography become mainstream?)

7 comments:

Saints and Spinners said...

I remember librarians complaining that Sex was flimsily put together and didn't stand up to repeated browsing. Really, for the price of the book there should have been leather binding or something-- I'm sure they could have figured out something sexy for leather binding. Ahem.

plainy said...

I think Madonna's street cred as a children's book author should be bolstered by the fact that her children appear to be well-adjusted and happy, (from what the tab photos show). I don't know about the youngest.

tanita✿davis said...

People's kids can give them credibility? Man, why didn't I have any! D'oh!

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