You Rule!: Create Your Own Country (Lonely Planet Kids) Kindle Edition

My daughters (age 7 and 11) enjoy going on fanciful journeys of imagination. This is why I thought that they would enjoy reading through "You Rule: A Practical Guide To Creating Your Own Kingdom" since it is essentially "directed fun" as it gives you thoughts and ideas on how to create your own realm to rule. In the book, you get to decide on the laws, setup the boundaries of the country you will make (I suggested that the girls either sub-divide the yard or use their own rooms), make up your countries flag (a little bit of background on heraldry here), and add (imaginary) citizens to their countries. Since the book also includes projects to complete (think SimCity or Civilization in book form), I thought it would be a fun way to explore the bounds of all government does in simplistic form (I'm a homeschooling parent so all free time is a fertile ground for learning!).However, I and my daughters quickly learned that some parts of forming and running your own country are not super stimulating. While the stories within the book are interesting (such as examples of people using loopholes in maps or laws to try and form splinter countries or early innovations in delivering mail), figuring out the ins and outs of your own economy is kind of dull. Also its much less an activity book than I had originally hoped. The first 28 pages are essentially background material and interesting factoids backing up a single decision - "Where will my country be". Considering this was a five minute decision for my girls, it seemed like almost 1/3 of the book was simply trivial filler material. Many of the other decision points were similar where you had 5-10 pages of interesting factoids to support something that takes your child one or two minutes to perform. The material in the book is generally good, but it seems like the book could be more of an activity book if some of these filler pages were removed.Overall, my kids got about two hours of interest out of this book where they were actively imagining their kingdoms. Once it got to the actually ruling of their countries and boring stuff (for them) like economics, the interest in the book waned. They have come back to it once in awhile to read the background material, but even though their ages are clearly in the wheelhouse of the book (suggested 8 and above) it clearly wasn't as fun for them as I had hoped. I've blown $12 on things that were over with much quicker than two hours, but you kind of hope a book would consume more of your child's time than that.

"You Rule” is a do-it-yourself manual for setting up your own country. Although it is aimed at kids, I found it totally fascinating. The book is thoroughly researched, filled with illustrations, and well written. I did not know that there was a Montevideo Convention, which establishes the rules for being a country. You need four things: an area, a permanent population, a government, and ability to deal with other countries. The last is self-referential. To be a recognized county, you have to be recognized by other countries. In any case, there are instructions for applying for United Nations membership.There is practical advice for things that you will need to do. Defining your territory is a must. Try to find some unclaimed territory. There is not much of this. Maybe, try to find a new island to claim. Existing countries generally frown on such activities.Advice includes choosing a name, designing a flag, a national song, a motto, how to make passports, and how to form a government. Passports are surprisingly easy to create. I did that once for a talk at the US State Department. Some people in my audience were not amused.Creating a country is not to be taken lightly. The process continues today. Most come about by splitting off existing countries. Can you find Slovenia or Slovakia on a map, or tell the difference between the two? Another option, not mentioned, is to take over an existing country and redo it.

When I showed this book to one of my daughters before ordering she was pretty psyched and thought that it sounded great. When it arrived she still thought it was pretty great and read through it (not sure how much), got a piece of paper, and started writing and drawing up stuff on her own country. The book was popular enough that first week that the two girls argued over who got it. I thought it was a neat idea, I liked the educational aspect of it, I like that it has a nice index, and I enjoyed the "factoids" in the book as did the kids. A lot of time has passed and no one is interested in it any more. I kind of almost feel that it is because they have forgotten about what was in it. The one daughter that was so excited about it at first now says she wishes it had more activities in it, but I thought there were activities in it like making a "room nation" and one's own "territory" (my daughter's paper did not look like these activities), "declaring" yourself, and so on. I can only figure that she didn't get through the whole book and missed a lot and I kind of think if the kids were to go back to book and go through the whole thing they might get back into it. As I went through it I kind of felt that it went on and on and I can see how a kid as young as mine (8) could lose interest. So, for now, the complaint is that they wanted it to have more activities, I think they mean more activities that are well defined and book led, and I guess for an 8 year old I can see that. Maybe this should have been more of just an "okay" (3 stars) but "like" (4 stars) works too.

This is a fascinating read - it might be aimed at children, but it also has fascinating content to make adults think about how our country is organised and run. Well worth reading!

The receiver loved this book - great fun

great