Customer Reviews

The Rainbow Fish

5 star:		(33)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(29)

 

 

If you have read through some of the controversy, and are on the fence about this book, I would suggest buying the full hardcover version rather than the board book edition. Having read both, I can more readily agree with the naysayers' point of view when applied to the board book. The text is simplified in such a way that makes it easy for a vigilant parent to misunderstand the message.

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.

This book must be properly framed for a child, otherwise they will take away the lesson that fitting in is much more important than finding out what it is that makes us all different and unique. The book reads just fine up until the rainbow fish is told (mandated, nearly) to share with everyone the very thing that makes it unique - hence, to dillute itself and bend to the whims of others.

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.

The author depicts the beautiful Rainbow Fish as constantly and impolitely snubbing the other fish until they no longer want to play with him. Thus, he shares his scales with all the other fish so that he's no longer special and they all look alike. What?! This is not good.
The message should have been that however you look, you should be humble and kind to others, not that you should rid yourself of (or share) all that makes you special and unique. Rainbow Fish should have kept his gorgeous scales and learned some manners. This is a bizarre and disturbing book whose popularity baffles me.

Defining what makes a children's book a classic is difficult. Increasingly, today, a classic is any book that a publisher manages to keep selling for more than five years. The Rainbow Fish is, to my mind, one of these books.

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.

When my daughter was born, we were given this book as a gift. The first time I read it to her, I closed it half way through and still shudder when I think of the message in this story - not to mention how many kids are getting this message. I have been told, time and time again, that this is a book about sharing, but I don't find that message at all. Instead, I see a uniquely beautiful fish who has a hard time making friends because he is different. So he starts giving away the very thing that makes him both unique and beautiful, his rainbow scales. Soon, everyone has his scales. Not only did he give away the essence of himself, but he created a world where, in order to get along, everyone is exaclty the same. Although the illustrations are beautiful, the subtle messages that we need to be the same in order to get along and that it is o.k. to change who you are to make friends are not messages I want my daughter to hear!

If this is a book about sharing, then its message was lost on me! More obviously, this book preaches conformity and appears to pay homage to the idea that no one should be any different than anyone else. The very idea that an individual should give away or somehow destroy the thing that makes him/her unique is terrible. Instead, the book should teach children how to treat others nicely and not use natural beauty/talent as a means of alienating peers.

Yes, I know some will feel that those who dislike this book are analyzing it to death, and if you are one who dislikes analyzing, you may really enjoy this book, and you can skip the rest of my review. Having said that, though, I found the story line for this book to be very disturbing. On the surface the story is about sharing, and indeed that message is conveyed. However, several other themes come across as well, and I think they are more prominent. First, if you refuse to give up what makes you special or beautiful when someone asks for it you will be rejected. Second, one is loved and valued for what one has to give away to other people. Third, it's not OK to stand out in some way - everyone must be the same.

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.

Won't you take off those protective scales that grow on you so that I might look good wearing them. NO? Then not only will I not talk to you any more, but I will go and tell everyone else that they should not have anything to do with you either. If you want to be my friend, you'll have to give up whatever you like about yourself, give in to my demands, and follow me.

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.

I was relieved to see so many other bad reviews of this book, because I had thought I was crazy. I knew this was a very popular book (posters, puppets, etc.) so I bought it and was shocked at how bad the story was. When the Rainbow Fish chooses not to give his beautiful shining scales to another fish, all of the fish swim away and leave him "all alone". Thanks to a wise octopus, he discovers the only way to win friends and be the "happiest fish in the sea" is to give away his scales. I'm a teacher and a parent, and this is just a really bad lesson to be giving to a child, especially one under three years old who has little experience interacting with other people and forms ideas and expectations about the world based on books, tv, familial messages, etc. It is just beyond bad if your child is already sensitive and non-aggressive.

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................

It is unclear how this managed to get published in the first place, but the message of self-mutilation for the sake of appeasement and egalitarianism is appalling, not appealing. It entered my house as a gift and, I am happy to say, quickly became the topic of an ongoing "twisted moral interpretation" contest among my children, all of whom categorically rejected the story in turn. On first exposure to the story, my latest two year old closed the book and forcefully discarded it shortly before the end.

I await with some anticipation their exposure to Das Kapital, Mein Kampf, and Mao's Little Red Book.