The Color of Water won high acclaim among reviewers and critics. The book reviewer for The Nation, Marina Budhos, praised the novel for its vivid and accomplished storytelling. Educator and activist Jonathan Kozol praised its emotional power, and Jack Geiger of The New York Times described the novel as a complex exploration of race, religion, and identity in which the power of family love emerges triumphant.

In addition to its extremely positive critical reception, the book spent over two years on The New York Times best-seller list; it became the number-one novel on The New York Times paperback best-selling fiction list, remaining there for forty weeks. The novel has sold more than 1.5 million copies in the United States, has been published in more than twenty countries, and was made into a film for television. Considered a major contribution to the genre of the modern biography, The Color of Water regularly appears on course lists and as required reading at numerous American high schools and universities.