The English Roses One of the teachers there had described the girls as "The English Roses" which Madonna found "funny". She had already progressed with a few other stories but wanted to write about girls who always felt they did not have "enough". The death of Madonna's mother at an early age had always affected her, and her musical endeavors. So while developing Binah, she drew from her own experience of dealing with her mother's death. Like her, Binah kept a picture of her mother beside her bed. It was Madonna's "own personal experience and I needed to come up with things for
The Witch's Children and the Queen The Witch's Children and the Queen The Witch's Children and the Queen is a children's picture book written by Ursula Jones, illustrated by Russell Ayto, and published by Orchard Children's Books in 2003. It won the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize, ages category 0–5 years. This is the second of three Witch's Children books created by Jones, perhaps better known as an actress, and Ayto. Ayto made the Greenaway Medal longlist as illustrator of the first one, "The Witch's Children" (Orchard, 2001). As of July 2013, it alone has a U.S. edition catalogued by the Library of Congress (PZ7.J72755 Wi 2003).