Madonna, once foul-mouthed scourge of the Vatican, takes to writing spiritual allegories for children

In a collaboration that could make well-meaning parents die of shock, Madonna has written a book of children's stories with her gangster-film-making husband, Guy Ritchie.

The singer, 44, whose conical bra and aluminium-covered Sex, a £25 book picturing her in erotic poses, epitomised her image of brazen and at times foul-mouthed raunchiness, has produced a volume of "spiritual allegories" for children aged five to eight.

In an interview for Vanity Fair magazine she describes how she has tempered her genius for outrage to the more sedate demands of becoming a children's novelist. "I have just written a collection of children's stories with my husband. In fact, I'm just finishing one at the moment," she said.

It "does something to shatter the illusions that we're all misguided by... There's always a wise man or woman in each story," her husband adds.

The book would be sold not-for-profit, the couple said. The publication date is not known.

Madonna was the disco diva who shocked the Vatican with the video for her single "Like a Prayer", and swore 13 times onthe Letterman talk show.

She is likely to upset some residents of her adopted city of London with the interview, in which she speaks glowingly of the architecture, parks and public spaces of the capital but not the homes of the less well-off. "I love the way the city looks, minus all the council estates randomly and profusely built up everywhere," she says.

Yet the interview contains suggestions of a new, more wholesome, Madonna. She and her husband have just completed a remake of the 1974 art-house movieSwept Away, in which a bitchy wealthy woman – the Madonna character – gets washed up on a desert island with a cruise ship deckhand. Suggestions of sodomy were removed and her husband insisted on no nudity.