(CBS) When Rosie O'Donnell posted a photo on her blog of her four-year-old daughter Vivienne Rose dressed up in a military costume complete with ammo belt filled with toy bullets around her chest, her fans reacted.

"Many, many people responded to it/in a variety of ways/wild really," O'Donnell told The ShowBuzz exclusively via e-mail Tuesday, writing in verse, as she often does.

Several fan comments were posted on the blog with some calling the photo "horrible" and "disturbing" and others calling it "brilliant" and "powerful."

O'Donnell explained to The ShowBuzz that the photo came out of her children playing a game of make-believe.

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Photos: Everything Rosie

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The kids pick a new costume from buycostumes.com every few weeks.

"They don't watch TV — this is how they play/the boys had fatigues and were playing war/the girls wanted some/they run around the house with water guns/shooting each other," she said.

O'Donnell is fascinated by the reaction to the simple image.

"It's fascinating to me/that an image of a child dressed up as a soldier/evokes so much attention/yet the real soldiers - their deaths - their wounded bodies/doesn't seem to faze most/or make news," she wrote.

Family is very important to O'Donnell, who said on her blog Sunday that she won't be taking over hosting chores at "The Price Is Right," now that Bob Barker has retired, because she would have to uproot her family and make the move from New York to California where the game show is taped.

O'Donnell had been mentioned as one of the successors to recently retired host Bob Barker. "The Early Show's" Dave Price and "Dancing With The Stars" alum John O'Hurley are some of the others said to be in the running for the job.

By Judy Faber
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