The English Roses by Madonna


The English Roses is a charming story about acceptance, understanding, and reserving judgment until the facts known.  This story is a beautiful way to explain to children that you can’t always know what a person’s life is like.  It demonstrates this concept through the use of a fairy godmother, which harkens back to an older style fairy tale where children were encouraged to use their imaginations and believe in the magic that childhood represents.  At the same time, Madonna gently pokes fun at the repetitiveness that sometimes creeps into children’s stories by acknowledging to the reader when she does this.  I enjoyed this story as much as my nieces and nephew did.

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