Wikijunior talk:Flower Alphabet

Move to Wikijunior?
Shouldn't this whole book get moved to the Wikijunior namespace? &mdash; Mike.lifeguard &#124; talk 15:59, 2 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Done. -- Adrignola talk contribs 05:53, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Book text
I am really at a loss at what the text for this book needs to be. I am trying to stay around the main author's point of view. So do you think we should have text and if so what do you suggest it be about, or do you think we should just leave it as a picture book.

I also think that the book should be moved to wikijunior but i don't know how to do that.--Xxagile (talk) 20:37, 2 September 2008 (UTC)


 * It's at the pre-reading level. A toddler won't remember the differences between a tulip and an orchid anyways.  Pictures it is. -- Adrignola talk contribs 05:53, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Printable version
Anyone want to do a printable version of this book?

Discussion of image choice etc
(moved from Wikijunior talk:Flower Alphabet/Z to this more appropriate page) What is the point of this "book", exactly? The selection of flowers is weird, some of the names are unpronounceable by the average adult, let alone a child (Cichorium, indeed – what's wrong with "chicory"?). Depending on where they live, most pre-readers will never have seen half of these plants. The names have not been chosen to be easy or straightforward to spell, or to pronounce (Eustoma for example, sounds to a child as though it starts with U, and Xeranthemum with a Z). Then the "Hyacinth" is not a hyacinth but a Water-hyacinth, a totally different species; the "Lily" is a Daylily; the "Marigold" is a French Marigold; the "Nasturtium" is commonly known as watercress (what most people, in the UK at least, would recognise as a "Nasturtium" is actually Tropaeolum majus); the orchid is a lousy photo (the Jacob's rod isn't great, either); the "Ulster Mary" is an Alstroemeria (and should we be encouraging the use of an incorrect name that is a corruption of the correct one?); the photo of the violet is such a huge close-up that it looks ridiculous; the woodbine is an American wild Clematis species (and looks like the plant that would more often be known, in the UK at least, as traveller's joy, or old man's beard when in seed – in the UK, woodbine is honeysuckle, Lonicera periclymenum); and Xeranthemum is an obvious sign of the desperation of this project… What a mess! SiGarb (talk) 17:55, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Why don't you improve it then instead of being a drive-by critic? -- Adrignola talk contribs 18:16, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Because I think the whole point of the book needs to be discussed. What is its proposed audience? Where are they based? For a world-wide English-speaking audience the selection would be different from one in the USA, or the UK. Should the choices be garden plants, ideally, or wild ones? Or just the most striking pictures available? Should the layout be more consistent from page to page? Should letters be included (Aa, Bb etc)? Etc. It just doesn't seem to have been thought through. SiGarb (talk) 18:42, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
 * The book's content has been largely determined by Xxagile, who is no longer active at Wikibooks. Any changes will have to be along the lines of being bold.  I've fixed up formatting and that's about it.  Latin names avoid regional names for plants but are indeed not easy to pronounce for children.  If not using the Latin name, differences between regions in the name of a plant will be unavoidable.  And as for a plant only growing in a certain area and not being familiar to everyone, that may be true for a great many plants.  If you have knowledge of flowers and better options, you'd be in the best position to make changes. -- Adrignola talk contribs 19:33, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
 * You've put your finger on the main advantage (and disadvantage) of botanical Latin; the advantage is it's universal, whereas "common names" change from place to place; the disadvantage is that many people find the Latin names off-putting and unpronounceable. But finding common names that are common to the majority of the English-speaking world is quite a task. There are some plants that are "commonly" known by their Latin names, but with changes in botanical nomenclature, these are often out-of-date (such as the scarlet bedding "geranium" that has been a Pelargonium for decades now). So it's a difficult decision to make. As is the question of whether you go for plants the children are likely to have seen and be familiar with, or whether to widen their horizons by including some spectacular exotics. Looking at other ABC books, and thinking back to my childhood, ABC books always included items, such as Giraffe, Igloo and Zebra, that would rarely, if ever, be seen by their readers in the flesh. So, on reflection, I think that familiarity is perhaps less of an issue than I suggested in my first posting, above. SiGarb (talk) 20:25, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Flower Alphabet
The pictures are beautiful, but some of the flowers are very local and are not very generic. I also wonder about the K flower because we call it Liatrus.