The English Roses her character where kids would stop and go, 'Wow! What would that be like?'" Binah's character was also influenced by Lourdes since Madonna felt she was often ostracized for being her daughter at school. Finally, "The English Roses" became a moral story with messages from Kabbalah, deduced from tales that Madonna had heard from her teacher. She also included messages about the perils of envy, ostracization, and assumption of other's lives. For "The English Roses", Madonna worked with illustrator Jeffrey Fulvimari, whose work on the book was described by Ginny Dougary of "The Sunday Times Magazine" as ""Madeleine" meets David
The English Bread Book making in France, Germany and Belgium, and the book contains recipes for German pumpernickel, French baguettes, Italian polenta bread, Turkish rolls and Indian breads. The following list refers to the 1857 edition. The unknown reviewer for "The Literary Gazette" wrote a favourable review of "The English Bread Book", which was also copied in full in "The Manchester Guardian". The reviewer called Acton a "clever author", and praised the inclusion of "the whole philosophy and practice, as well as the history of the subject of bread-making, in its plain and fancy forms". In a review in "The Glasgow Herald", the critic