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 Bread Book considered the book "excellent, and we trust to be popular". Readers of the book, the reviewer thought, will become possessed of a store of useful knowledge, as well as scientific as practical, upon a question which is essentially that of every man, woman and child in the wide universe". In her work, "English Bread and Yeast Cookery", Elizabeth David writes that "The English Bread Book" heavily influenced and informed her work, and she owes Acton a debt for it. The food writer Elizabeth Ray observes that the book was less successful than "Modern Cookery", and was only reprinted in 1990.