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Due to a passing in the family a few years ago and my subsequent health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for years after the bereavement. Thank you for the opportunity.

Bright and colorful book of flags! Visually engaging and informative to young readers and adults alike. You will gain insight with fun facts and trivia about the flags around the world. Always enjoy finding a good history lesson that is vivid with imagery and brings the facts to life.

Wowee wow, is this colorful book filled with everything you’d want to know about flags — 268 of them! Featuring flags from every country across the globe, plus fab background stories, an exercise to design your own flag, and a fun quiz. 5 of 5 stars.

Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the ARC. Opinions are mine. Pub Date 28 Aug 2018. #RaiseTheFlag #NetGalley

"Raise the Flag" is a comprehensive book about flags. Anything from trivial general knowledge, history/backgrounds of flags of few selected countries, to uses of flags and etc., there are definitely so much more being offered here. The book has amazing graphics and great information that would charm young children who are interested in learning more about flags.

Many different countries share similar coloring schemes/themes and the similarities sometimes cause confusion. "Raise the Flag" manages to explain well and helps to retain the information well. No longer need to force memorize those flags which look almost identical.

Since the book is written for children, the selections of counties being discussed are limited, however.

This is a great book to own and would make a good investment since the book could be used in numerous ways to engage children from all ages to the topic. Even adults could learn a thing or two about flags! I highly recommend it.

What an amazing book. I really enjoyed reading it. It is well-written. I will definitely recommend this book to my friends.

My Thoughts on ‘Raise the Flag: Terrific flag facts, stories and trivia!’:
trivia, uses and more:
This book is exactly what it says it is in its title – full of terrific flag facts, stories and trivia! It includes a lot of various fun facts like flag fails(for example, the US flag was once flown at an international meeting of national leaders with the wrong number of stars!) and a quiz at the end of the book to check what you learned and what you observed(!).

Did you know the names for the different parts of a flag (or that a flag had parts)? There is so much more you can learn as you read this book. You find out about many different types of flags and learn how flags are/were used in communicating – in sports, for messaging in the high seas, during war times, and more. You learn about the symbolism of flags – based on their designs as well as on how they are flown or moved.

history and geography and more trivia:
It also includes the history of flags in general as well as some more specific stories about some flags. They are not just pieces of fabric – they have cool origin stories, are treasured and respected by the people who raise these flags (whether it is a flag for an organization, a team, a city, a country, or anything else), and they have specific ways they can be used, displayed, folded, and unfolded.

The flags of the world are organized by their continents, with some of the country flags highlighted for each continent. These highlighted flags provide us with very interesting stories to read. I loved learning about different flag designers across the world, from a 15-year old art student in New Guinea to a designer who had to design his country’s flag in a week’s time!

In addition to all this information, the book also includes celebrations for flags held across the world, and so many more interesting facts that you can discover for yourself, like the one below. The book also includes activities that kids can work on – like designing a flag (one that is their own, that represents them), and ends with a glossary of terms used in the book.

An aside:
A caveat to note: Some country flags were not shown in the book though it describes it as ‘every nation’; on checking further about those countries, I noticed they are recognized differently by the UN (though not always the case for all included/excluded sovereign states) but it is a minor caveat.

In Summary:
‘Raise the Flag’ is flag-tastic (as it states in a chapter title and I agree!). The amount of information contained in this book astounded me! It is a wonderful learning resource for history and geography units in school and classrooms. It can also make a great addition to home libraries with so much to discover 🙂

Rating: A
Reading Level: 8 years and above
Reread Level: 5/5

Disclaimer: Thank You #NetGalley for the DRC of this book. The opinions are my own.

I mainly asked for this book to see if it would work with my curriculum because I home school and I can assure you that it will! It's a beautiful book with a lot of great information, lots that I didn't even know, and it's easy enough that the kids could read and be engaged with it too. This could be an incredibly helpful teaching tool. 5 out of 5 stars.

The formatting in my copy was pretty rough. I know this was an ARC but.. it took a lot of effort to make sense of the jumble. That said, it was very informative and age appropriate. The information was well researched and I think many young patrons will enjoy this resource.

I thought Raise the Flag was a fun book! It has lots of information about different countries' flags and their meanings. There is history included behind many of the flags of the world. I liked learning about all the different ways flags are created and adopted. The stories are short and varied. I would recommend this for kids between six and twelve years old.

An excellent book to introduce geography to children! Well organized, colorful and filled with information about flags and little bits of trivia. This would make a great addition to a home or school library.

Thank you NetGalley and Quarto Publishing Group - QEB for an advanced copy of this book.

I can't in my good conscience rate this book a 5-star, which, I'll be honest, I would have done so had a certain country be included. This is very personal, but I feel hurt that the flag of Taiwan was not included, and what's worse, "Taiwan" was actually listed in the index! Yet that page was about "retired flag"! I mean, it's a cool bit of history, but what about the very much still in-use Taiwanese flag? I'll also admit, maybe I'm making it a big deal over nothing; if the book's intention isn't to include all the flag of current existing countries, as in, there's actually other missing country flags, let me know ASAP and I will change the rating in a heartbeat. But if the intention is to showcase all the flags, then no, I can't do it.

That being said, I really do love the graphics. The illustrations, the colors, the compositions; I appreciate them all. Content-wise I haven't finished reading, for you can imagine, the first thing I'd want to check is my homeland and was devastated to not have found it, but I can give the book high praises just by the design aspect of it.

When I went to school, we learnt the flags of each country, I don't think its done anymore, more's the pity.
This is a very interesting book, some of the flags have changed since my schooldays, and there are new ones, but what I really found interesting was the historical facts.
The illustrations make it really interesting, written more for a young audience but very interesting to both children and adults alike.
I really recommend this book

The type of book kids will pour over for hours. Fun trivia, colorful layout. I wish Gifford had included a bibliography or source notes. A bigger problem, particularly for some international schools, are choices he made about what flags to include or not include. For example, Palestine and Taiwan are not included (while other disputed areas such as Kosovo are.) Still, this is a fun book for browsing; just don't use it for research. Based on an ARC received through NetGalley.

Full marks for this book, for doing just what I wanted – and more. I grew up with a book with the world's flags in, which is perfectly redundant now, considering the new countries and changes made since my day. This seems totally current, and delves into all the continents and their national flags – but also so much else. The trophyism of planting flags in extremities like the Poles and on Everest, semaphore, flag signalling in sports, the people who actually design the flags themselves – all are given their own chapters, and they're not the expected lame box-outs, either. The book is also great at discussing the derivation of the flags, the symbolism of them and so on. As a result some of the countries get much more attention than others, but I think it's fair to say that the more unusually patterned and decorated ones deserve more time than your bog standard colours. I felt this book hit every nail square on the head, and if you think your child will require a copy for fun and trivia, and to discover the world through esoteric means, then go for it. Certainly school libraries need a copy.

I requested this book for my son who has a keen interest in flags since doing a school topic on them last year. The bright cover suggested it would be perfect for him and it really was.

The colourful illustrations and interesting facts made for a great read together. We were able to talk about the facts as we read them and use them as a jumping point to learn more about each country.

I would definitely recommend this book and will be looking out for a paperback copy to add to our family bookshelf.

Raise the Flag by Clive Gifford

A wonderful colorful educational book filled with information about facts, trivia and stories about flags. I found the pages fun to look at and intriguing to read. I can see using this with children for background and also to create new flags at any time.

I remember trying to use flags on a soccer/football field as a linesman and it was difficult to remember which way to lift it for the referee to know which team should have the ball. I looked at the semaphore information for alphabet use and decided that would take a great deal of time and effort to become proficient in. I enjoyed the bits of history that were tucked in here and there and actually learned a few terms and what they meant as I made my way from cover to cover.

Even though flags change from time to time this would definitely make a wonderful gift for a child or teacher.

Thank you to NetGalley and Quarto Publishing-QEB for the ARC – This is my honest review.

5 Stars

This was just the book we were looking for. We wanted to learn a lot more about flags around the world. This gives facts and general information. Well illustrated and full of lots of interesting facts.

This is a really well done children's book. It's a great way to introduce kids to learning about other countries by learning about their flags. I loved the illustrations and thought that the book was organized really well.

This was a wonderfully bright and informative book about the history of flags. I liked the way that it represented every country and had them separated by region, which really made the facts about common colors and symbols more accessible. Definitely going to want to buy this one for the library.