A Daisy is a Daisy (except when it's a girl's name)

Many girls are named after flowers (or even forms of the word “flower,” such as Flora). This inspired Linda Wolfsgruber to create this utterly charming book. Girls’ names in different languages accompany her imaginative illustrations of flowers, so that the reader discovers, for example, that Gul means rose in Turkish, but that it is Rosa in Spanish and Rodanthe in Greek.

Flowers named in the book include rose, heather, buttercup, sunflower, lily of the valley, daisy, bluebell, snowdrop, hyacinth, myrtle, camomile, cherry blossom, jasmine, violet, tulip, poppy…

This is a beautiful and intriguing gift book for anyone interested in girls’ names, flowers and the fine art of book illustration. But it can also be used in the classroom to talk about multiculturalism, language and botany.

Linda Wolfsgruber was born in South Tyrol, Italy. She is a world-renowned artist who has exhibited her work throughout Europe and in the United States and Japan. She has won many awards, including the Austrian Art Award (2016), the Children’s and Juvenile Book Award for Illustration (four times), and the Golden Apple of the Biennial of Illustration Bratislava. She is on the shortlist for the Hans Christian Andersen Award (2018). She lives in Vienna.

The opening spread is breathtakingly lovely: “Flora, Florica, Kukka, Lore, Hana and Zvetana mean flower.” Scattered over these two pages are monotype, collage and line-drawing images of flowers, stems and floral parts, as well as little notes: “Hana—Japanese girl’s name”; “Lore—Basque girl’s name.” With the information that Gul is a Turkish girl’s name that means rose is an exquisite line drawing of a rose on its side with the face of a small girl appearing from the petals. She’s asleep. Other versions of the name Rose are noted in other languages, like Rhodanthe in Greek. Girassol means sunflower in Portuguese, and a girl with a sunflower face rides a bicycle. Csilla means bluebell in Hungarian, and the tiny face of a red-haired girl peers from a bluebell blossom against a background of blue stars. Many girls, such as Kamilka (chamomile), wear parts of their flowers as hat, skirt or cloak. Gelsomina in Italian and Yasmina in Arabic both mean jasmine, and she wears fairy wings; Erika (heather in German) sprouts heather blossoms from her hands and hair and pelvis. Precious in the very best sense of the word, these sophisticated, delicate images repay repeated examination, as well as sending the sweet message that girls are thought as beautiful as flowers all over the world. " - Kirkus Review