The Rainbow Fish

However, I found the hardcover book to be perfectly lovely. In this version, it was more clear that the reason the Rainbow Fish had no friends was because of his arrogant attitude and unwillingness to share - not because the other fish were envious, or needed to be "bought" with gifts. The sharing of his scales was not to "buy" friends or to promote communism - rather, it represented his learning three important lessons: 1) that his identity need not be tied into his appearance or his possessions, 2) that he shouldn't consider himself to be superior to the other fish just because their scales were a different color than his, and 3) that sharing your blessings with those around you makes you - and them - feel good.

I highly recommend this book, in its original version.

It is frightening to think that someone that creates television programming for children thought that this is a morality tale.

Beware!

The story is simple: a beautiful, vain fish is shunned by his fellow fishes for not sharing his rainbow scales. So he does, and by the end of the book all of the fishes are swimming around with one shiny scale - uniform, boring, conformed. The poor fishes look moronic with their one shiny scale each.

I felt a real sense of sadness - instead of learning to live with differences and and to embrace them with humility, beauty is destroyed for the sake of equality and conformity.

Despite the disturbing (to me) themes, I found the book to be beautifully illustrated. We have the bath book version, and the illustrations are much more beautiful and complex than your average bath book. The colors in the illustrations are all within the same color family, though (adjacent on the color wheel for you artists) - purple, blue, green. This color scheme is appealing to me, but my daughter finds it boring, and doesn't really like to look at this book.

I don't read the story to my daughter because the themes concern me, but if your child likes the colors and pictures it's a nice book just to look at together. We "read" the things in the pictures rather than the story ("Look it's a pretty fish with shiny scales" "Where's the seashell?" etc) and that works fine. I wouldn't buy the book for myself, but I didn't throw it away when someone gave it to me either.

Bottom line for you fish lovers: What happens when you take away a fish's scales? Answer: It dies.

This is the story of a beautiful fish who is hated and ostrasized by all the other fish in the sea because they envy his beautiful silver scales. I assumed that the moral of the story would have something to do with everyone being beautiful in his or her own way, and that eventually the other fish would come to recognize their own beauty. Unfortunately not. Instead, the Rainbow Fish is harangued and harrassed by his fellow fish until he has given away all but one of his silver scales. In the end he is very happy because he has become popular.

The morals of this story are pretty shocking: 1.) It suggests that children should give in to peer pressure. 2.) It teaches children that friendship can be bought. 3.) It says that it is not only right, but a moral imperative, to sacrifice the very essence of yourself for the sake of popularity. 4.) It suggests that popularity is the ultimate good, and that one cannot be happy without it. 5.) It teaches that envy will be rewarded. 6.) It teaches children that it's okay to ostrasize people who are different. 7.) It teaches that rude behavior is acceptable if it gets you want you want. 8.) It suggests (to younger readers in particular, who may not be capable of grasping metaphor) that only outer beauty matters. 9.) It teaches that happiness can be achieved by tearing down or destroying what belongs to others. 10.) It preaches a kind of social Marxism: that there is no value in the uniqueness of an individual, that his worth and his happiness depend on his desire to conform to the values and demands of his peer group.

Frankly, I am astounded that anyone saw fit to confer any honors upon this book.

Unfortunately, this book not only fails to produce such a story or lesson, but rather teaches us several undesirable lessons. And make no mistake -- this book is not about sharing.

First, we are taught that we should simply ask others, who have more than we do, to give us something for nothing. And not just ask for "something" but ask for the very thing that makes the other person feel special about themselves and that which they value most in the world. Apparently, we have a right to what others have.

Second, we are taught that if someone asks you to give him something free of charge, we shouldn't ask why but rather should just give it away -- even if it is the very thing we prize most in this world.

Third, we should be appalled if someone scoffs at or refuses such a request to give us something free for no apparent reason. And we also learn that it is appropriate to ostracize such an individual. Indeed, we are taught that ostracism based on envy is perfectly appropriate.

Fourth, we should understand that others, who don't have what we have, will ostracize us. If we want their friendship, we should give them what we have -- even if it requires that we give away our most prized possession in the world. Only then can we have friends.

Fifth, we learn that we can indeed befriend someone if they give us what we want and ask for. Indeed, buying friends is perfectly appropriate.

Finally, we learn that being unique is wrong. We should all be the same -- only then can we be happy.

This is the worst book I'm aware of (and I'm aware of many) that you could ever read to your child. Truly despicable. And parents take note: this is mandatory reading in some public schools.

I changed the words to this book, but my daughter is almost three now and can pick out certain words (that she knows I'm not reading!) and asked me to read the "real" story. I explained that I wasn't crazy about the story, and promptly disposed of the book. I did not even consider donating it to the library or selling it to a used bookstore, because I don't want to be part of perpetuating this story! It is that bad.

Please do your children and society a favor and skip this book. Unless "give other kids all of your special, favorite things or else they'll all hate you and you'll be lonely and sad forever" is a moral lesson you want to teach your children, you'd be better off choosing one of the gazillion excellent children's books out there. Try anything by Richard Scarry, Byron Barton, Sandra Boynton, Eric Hill, Eric Carle, Dr. Seuss, etc. etc. etc................

Rainbow Fish is gifted with unusual iridescent scales, which he arrogantly declines to share. As a result of not wanting to share his scales, he is unpopular, and eventually, with the aid of a wise octopus, learns that by sharing his scales he can make friends.

What exactly is the message here? Are the fish's scales a form of wealth? If so, does the lesson Rainbow Fish learns mean that fish are socialists? Is it wrong to differ from your peers, as he does before distributing his scales to others so everyone has exactly one rainbow scale? What does this say about his individuality? Alternatively, is this not a question of difference but of class, with the sparkling scales a form of inappropriately conspicuous consumption? Put simply, is it wrong to, pardon the pun, upscale your peers? I find the suggestion that Rainbow Fish has no other way to make friends than to surrender his unique scales disturbing. Should my son surrender his prized new tie-dyed shirt to his preschool peers if they desire it, perhaps in swatches so everyone can have a bit? Why should he? Sharing is a noble and vital virtue to instill in our kids, but not at the expense of their identities.

Many reviewers on this site cite this book for its "wonderful moral and terrific lesson," so I anticipate that I am not going to get a lot of people who found this review helpful. Regardless, I can't pretend that I find this a good book. If the message is one about appreciating inner beauty, shouldn't the Rainbow Fish simply have laid his finery aside altogether?

Visually, the book offers an appealingly rich underwater palette of blues, and the magically sparkling iridescent scales embedded in the pages contribute, no doubt, to small hands pulling this book off the shelf. But all that glitters isn't gold; this book certainly isn't.

I would have preferred to see the authors take a harder line against this, but I suppose that it's fitting in this day and age to teach our children that fitting in is #1, and realizing what makes you different, or special, or unique, is secondary and expendible.

A real shame.

I think getting children interested in books at a young age is crucial, so ordinarily I would love a book with this kind of appeal, even if it wasn't a book that especially appealed to me. I perfectly understand that sometimes children and adults have different tastes.

But this book, despite its prettiness, is awful. A beautiful fish, different from all the other fish because of his glittering, jewel-colored scales, has a hard time making friends, because the other fish don't like the fact that he does not look like them. In order to win friends, he gives away his scales, one by one, until all the fish in the ocean look alike. I understand that the book is supposed to be about sharing, but giving away everything you have isn't sharing, it's buying friends. That's something many young children are already prone to do, and it's not something any caring parent or teacher would want to encourage.

The book's success also bothers me because it is a blatant rip-off of a much better book - Leo Lionni's classic Tico and the Golden Wings. In Lionni's book, a bird gives away the golden feathers of its wings. But the tone of the book is very different. Lionni's bird is born without wings, unable to fly. He wishes for wings, and is granted golden ones. As he flies around the world, he sees people living lives of great hardship and he gives each person one of his golden feathers in order to help them. Each time he gives away a golden feather, a real one grows in its place. In the end, his bird friends see him with his black wings and tell him that now he's just like them. But Tico realizes that although he looks like them, he is different inside.

Unlike The Rainbow Fish, Tico and the Golden Wings teaches children to be generous AND to be themselves. It doesn't make it seem like it's impossible to be a unique individual and still get along with others.

But the book celebrates ostracism that drives a fish with colorful scales to tear off his scales and give them one apiece to the ostracizing herd---so that aesthetically he is dragged down to their level and so that the masses gain only a marginal improvement by completely destroying the appearance of the standout.

Sounds wonderful to me!

It makes me think of a bully (little fish) saying to a child (rainbow fish)- 'I will not be your friend unless you give me your lunch money'. And this book takes the side of the bully.

Here is a quote:
"Give a glittering scale to each of the other fish. You will no longer be the most beautiful fish in the sea but you will discover how to be happy" (---so one cannot be happy unless they sacrifice what is important to them?!?).

Also the little fish says to rainbow fish that he just 'wants one little scale' implying that that is the only way to win his friendship.

This story would be great if Rainbow fish decided to share his scales WITHOUT the pressure that it is the ONLY way to win friendships. What would have made a good book would be for rainbow fish to be kind & helpful to win over friendships and not get friends simply by 'buying' them over with his scales.

Of course sharing is good and right, but sharing is not in response to demands that say "Give me what I want or I'll make your life miserable." The positive feeling that comes from giving should be about doing what is right, not about buying friends or paying off enemies.

At first I thought the other negative reviewers were drawing too much out of this children's story. But how many times have you heard children begging other children "Please be my friend" and the other children saying "I will if you give me this...or that..." - I've heard it countless times watching kids on the playground and I remember it from my own childhood. This book reiterates that message. Give me what I want and I'll be your friend. Isn't that a fair-weather friend, blackmail??? What a rotten message to send to kids!

However, now that I am writing a lesson plan using this book, and writing my assignment based on this lesson, I have my doubts.

Rainbow Fish (RF) starts out OK, the problem begin when a fish with no shinning scale asked RF to give him one shinning scale because the scales are wonderful and he had so many. Now, is that what we want to teach our children - go out there and ask for something that you do not have?

Next, the fish who was rejected started telling all his friends what happened and naturally RF is left with no friends. Isn't this horrible? I don't think RF did anything wrong, the shinning scales are his and RF has every right to refuse to give them away. Are we telling our children not to be friends with people who are rich because they refuse to give us their money when they have so much?

RF then goes on a journey to discover the `truth'. `wise' creatures of the ocean advice him to share his shinning scales - give one to every fish. The outcome is, RF would have little scales left but much happier.

Of course, RF takes the advice and started doing charity - giving away all his scales and left one for himself and he becomes friends with all the recipients

Are we telling our children that we can only be friends with people who gives us things? Or that if we want friends, we need to share the most precious items with them. Never mind that all the recipients only want the shinning scales because they look beautiful.

I can only agree to helping or sharing with people who need help but in this case, all the other fish do not need shinning scales. It is as though we are telling out children that if we don't have better things in life - go out there and ask for it.

Now, I don't feel comfortable reading this book to my class.

Whatever happened to themes like "never judge a book by its cover" and friendship will come when kindness comes from within, when you are accepting of another's inadequacies as well as their excellence, or when you are honest and build trust by caring and sharing?

That having been said, the pictures are really good, and maybe the message of the book will be ignored for the pictures, which is what gives it 2 stars rather than 1.

In some group of "friends", you must follow what the whole group thinks. If you have a good reason but think differently from the group, well, they think you are disloyal to the group and they will kick you out. This group also tries to do things just because it has ten, twenty, or more group members, and exert power on other persons or small groups. To me, this kind of group stinks, and this book depicts a group similar to such a group and glorifies it.

Extension to this story:
The rainbow fish lost his scale one day, and he missed the scale so much. So he asked other fish, whether any one of them doesn't want the scale and will give it to him. Some fish say, "I am very busy lately". Some fish say, "It is YOUR problem, not mine". Some fish say, "The scale is mine now and I am not giving it back. Get a lawyer. Don¡¦t disturb me or I will call the police".

The Octopus (that produces ink like a squid?) is the main villain in this story. First, she fails to understand that the Rainbow Fish was rejected not for having prettier scales than the other fish, but rather for being snobbish. Rather than being urged to mutilate himself by ripping out his own scales, the Rainbow Fish should have been taught that each fish is beautiful in its own way. Having learned this, he would no longer be snobbish. Not only would he then gain the respect of the other fish, but also he would establish a much truer friendship with them than one that was simply bought.

The epilogue to the story: The Rainbow Fish, deprived of his protective scales, dies of exposure and infection. The other fish, those who have not been killed by an allergic reaction to the rainbow fish scales, watch their own pilfered rainbow scales shrivel up and die, since they are no longer attached to the owner.

More important,I think the lesson presented in this book is shallow and one-sided. Yes, the Rainbow Fish is vain and selfish but the behavior of the other fish is never questioned and therefore assumed to be correct. Why, for instance, does the little fish deserve a shiny scale? When he doesn't receive one he immediately tells the other fish and they all shun the Rainbow Fish. Apparently, the only way for the Rainbow Fish to regain their friendship is to "buy" it with his beautiful scales.

I would have much rather seen the Rainbow fish do something heroic and perhaps lose or dull his scales in the process. Then the other fish could seek his friendship based on the Rainbow Fish's heroic character.

Notice how in the end all was well because everyone was "equal" (equally ugly and poorly suited to their environment). Rainbow fish was the tall poppy so of course he is portrayed with a bad attitude (the evil rich) and of course he had to to be cut down by the octopus (a symbol for big government with all its tentacles). If this was about slamming materialism/narcicism, why not just throw his scales away. Why should he give them to others - wouldn't that mean the materialism is ok as a long as it is uniformly distributed. This is INSANE!!!!!

If you have things others don't have, you can only be happy by giving them away. This is a book only Castro and soccer moms could love. At the end there is a group hug and everyone is happy and unoffended. Make sure your children's school teachers don't read this to your kids!!! If they do, make sure you tell them how wrong the rainbow fish was to give away that which made him unique. Talk about slamming individuality in favor of conformity. I thought liberals were supposed to be non-confromists...

So you need to give up your assets and level the playing field in order to be accepted by the collective. Only a fool would fail to see this book as an attempt to promote collectivist dogma.

However, it is about the only page worth reading anyway. The fact that it is REQUIRED reading in many public schools is absolutely repulsive, but it speaks volumes of the current state of public education/indoctrination. The slimy little Bolshevik should be squished under a weighty tome of "Atlas Shrugged" and be put out of his misery before he dies a slow death from a nasty sea fungus infecting his raw, weeping, denuded and unscaled flesh. Nah, on second thought, the latter would be a more fitting condign punishment and a good lesson for impressionable young minds to learn.

The moral messages are not beautiful: change who you are so others accept you. Give what you have to others who don't have what you have so they will like you.

This sounds like the author is a socialist. Coming from Switzerland, it's a real possibility.

Although I can appreciate the author's intent in teaching a lesson on sharing, it seems the logical extent that he give up his scales in order to make a friend and to feel happy just doesn't work.

I suggest an alternate: Friendless, the Rainbow Fish becomes humble and asks the small fish for forgiveness for being a jerk. He tries to "buy" the small fish's friendship by first offering him a scale. The small fish sees through it and refuses the scale. The RF cries and confesses to being a jerk. The small fish seeing the pathetic state of the Rainbow Fish accepts the apology and they become best friends. At some point as their relationship grows, the Rainbow Fish, as a token of his true friendship gives the small fish one of his scales. The small fish is overjoyed, but he starts to feel bad. He told all the other fish what a jerk the Rainbow Fish was. He confesses to the Rainbow Fish what he told everyone. The small blue fish then, to make things better, goes and tells the other fish that Rainbow Fish is not like he used to be. In fact, RF gave the small fish a beautiful scale and RF did it not to MAKE a friend, but because he WAS a friend.

The other fish are impressed and decide if the small blue fish can be convinced, they will accept RF as a friend, too. The end.

This book can be interpreted in three ways:

1. Rainbow Fish will only be accepted by the other fish if he gives away his many shiny scales so that each fish possesses the same number of shiny scales - thus it is socialism.

2. Rainbow Fish will only be accepted by the other fish when he is the same as all of the others by not being unique (especially uniquely beautiful). Rainbow Fish can not be more than the other fish in any way. This perfectly describes the philosophy of our modern educational system - everyone must be dumbed down to the same point - no one can be smarter than the others.

3. Rainbow Fish suffers from the Ugly Fish Union. They will unionize to make sure they get what they want from Rainbow Fish. My apology to union employees - I'm a union member myself, but do not like the way unions are abused. Perhaps I should have likened the story to mob racketeering.

The book claims to be about sharing, but is far too off base in its presumption. Sharing is what you do with things you possess. Rainbow Fish gives away his shiny scales - he gives away what makes him Rainbow Fish - this is not sharing, but rather is self-destruction.

The key to any of these interpretations is that Rainbow Fish is not loved for being Rainbow Fish and the only solution is to minimize his uniqueness in order to be loved. This solution is far too simplistic (its totally wrong) to work in real life.

This is not a message that I will teach my daughter. I want her to be secure and confident in her uniquenesses. I hope she will never feel that she needs to become someone other than she is to be loved and accepted by those around her.