The English Roses Hemingway, and Flannery O'Connor, was galvanized to write something new by herself. She wrote five stories and sent the manuscripts at the same time to Callaway, suggesting they be published together, but he wanted each story to be developed and released separately. In March 2003, it was announced that Madonna and Callaway Arts & Entertainment had signed a deal with Penguin Group to publish an original series of five illustrated storybooks for children. The first release under this deal was "The English Roses". The book and its characters were named after Madonna's daughter Lourdes' school friends at Lycée Franco-Libanais Tripoli.
The English Roses because their lives might be harder than ours." The reviewer noted Jewish influences in the story with the name Binah, and the character calling her father "papa" and wearing a "shmatte" on her head. Kate Kellaway of "The Observer" described the story as "written in language that veers between Hilaire Belloc and breakfast TV", finding the tone arch and strained but containing charm. She felt Fulvimari's illustrations made the book look like "a party invitation with his pictures of a garlanded, girly existence: each English rose a fashion-plate, with a doe-eyed stare, caught up in a whirl of blue butterflies,