The English Roses across the United States. In the United Kingdom, "The English Roses" sold 8,270 copies according to BookScan and was ranked number 17 on the top-selling list. It was the second best-selling children's book, with 220 fewer sales than author J. K. Rowling's "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix". Worldwide the book went on to sell a million copies by April 2005. "The English Roses" received moderate reviews after its release. Ayelet Waldman from "Tablet" questioned whether Rabbi Baal Shem Tov, whose morals were the inspiration behind Madonna's writing endeavors, did really ask "to be nice to pretty girls
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,