The Rainbow Fish

The story is about a small rainbowfish with shiny, multi-coloured scales. He has blue, green, purple, and pink scales. Interspersed with these colorful scales are shiny, holographic scales which are his favorites. The other fish from his gang also have scales, but only scales matching to their real colors. However, they wish that they had shiny silver scales just like that little newbie Rainbow Fish. One day, a small blue fish (wishing he could have shiny silver scales) asks the Rainbow Fish if he could have one of his shiny silver scales. The Rainbow Fish refuses in a very rude manner. The small blue fish tells all the other fish that The Rainbow Fish was being rude, and as a result, the other fish do not want to play with him any more.

His only remaining friend, the starfish, tells him to go visit the wise octopus for advice. When he goes to the cave where the wise octopus lives, he sees the octopus. She says (in a deep voice) that she has been waiting for him. She explains that the waves have told her his story. Then, she gives The Rainbow Fish her advice: He must share his scales with the other fish. She continues that he might no longer be the most beautiful fish after that, but he will discover how to be happy. The Rainbow Fish says that he cannot share his favorite scales, and the wise octopus disappears in a cloud of ink.

When he encounters the little blue fish for a second time, The Rainbow Fish shares one of his precious silver scales and sees the little fish's joy. With that one shiny scale gone, he immediately feels much better. Very soon, the Rainbow Fish is surrounded by the other fish requesting scales and he shares one of his shiny silver scales with each of them. Soon, everyone in the ocean has one shiny scale, including The Rainbow Fish. The Rainbow Fish is finally happy even though he only had one shiny scale left.

A Publishers Weekly reviewer called the book a "cautionary tale about selfishness and vanity".[2]

There are five other sequels in the Rainbow Fish book series:

• Rainbow Fish to the Rescue: About the acceptance and integration of foreigners.
• Rainbow Fish and the Big Blue Whale: About arguments and how to settle them.
• Rainbow Fish and the Sea Monster's Cave: About irrational and rational fears.
• Rainbow Fish Finds his Way: With the help of his new friends, Rainbow Fish finds his way back home.
• Rainbow Fish Discovers the Deep Sea: About modesty and happiness.

On March 25, 1997, an animated adaptation of the story book was released on VHS and DVD (known as The Rainbow Fish and Dazzle the Dinosaur). The home video releases also contain the film Dazzle the Dinosaur which is based on another book written by Pfister and published in 1994. The animated short film features a song called "Giving Makes You Special". In Dazzle the Dinosaur, the imaginary dinosaur named Dazzle is an egg (separated from another family and is at first an orphan). Although it is not specified what kind of dinosaur he is, he is possibly an Ouranosaurus (relative of Iguanodon; or in other words a dinosaur from the Iguanodontidae family). Then he adopts a young female Maiasaura from a Maiasaura family and herd. Her name is Maia the Maiasaura. In this story, they try to get the no-good Dragonsaurus (which terrified the Maiasauruses) to give them back their old home (which had once been in a cave). The duo (Dazzle and Maia) see a Apatosaurus. Then they tell him the truth about their old home (their cave) which the Dragonsaurus had moved in to. When the Quetzalcoatlus takes Dazzle and Maia to the cave (which the Dragonsaurus had moved in). But he warns them he and his flock leave at sunset. Because he is not staying when the Dragonsaurus comes around (saying to them, "I am never again coming back to that cave once the Dragonsaurus is awake!"). The Dragonsaurus does give it back in the end, and Dazzle, Maia, and all the other Maiasauruses are able to return to their old home. The dinosaurs in this story are Apatosaurus, Stegosaurus, Quetzalcoatlus, Deinonychus, Tyrannosaurus, Ouranosaurus (that being Dazzle), and Dragonsaurus.

The Rainbow Fish was adapted into a children's animated television series in 1999.[3] However, the television series does not follow the plot of the book; rather it takes the character and the setting and creates a new story with them. Some characters were added and others embellished for the purposes of the show. In the series, the place where the fish live is called Neptune Bay (after Neptune, god of the sea). The fish attend school, which is aptly named "The School of Fish". There is a shipwreck called "Shipwreck Park" in the series that resembles the wreck of the RMS Titanic. It was produced by Decode Entertainment and Yoram Gross-EM.TV. 26 episodes were produced.[4]

Some critics have asserted that The Rainbow Fish "promotes socialism", or collectivist values. From this perspective it has been alleged that, "…the message this book sends to children about envy, entitlement, uniformity and mediocrity [is problematic]. Not to mention the bullying and shaming used by the scaleless fish to get what he wants."[5] Ira Stoll, another critic of The Rainbow Fish on anti-socialist grounds, claims that Amazon.com reviews of the book were evenly divided between those in favor of the book (and the values that it promotes), and those reviews that were more critical, including, "For a flavor of the one-star reviews, one is titled, 'Great for the young communist and socialist.'"[6]

In the June 2019 issue of Reason magazine, libertarian journalist Matt Welch wrote an article titled "Don't Be Like the Rainbow Fish,"[7] in which he described the ways in which the Rainbow Fish in the book acted quite differently from that of the author of the book, Marcus Pfister, in Welch's view. Welch derides the process in which the Rainbow Fish in the book gave away its scales, and become "colorless", as contrasting starkly with the colorful methods and materials Pfister himself would have used in order to produce the actual book, which ultimately went on to sell millions of copies. Welch said, "Whereas Rainbow Fish achieves transcendence through literally becoming colorless, the exact opposite was the case for The Rainbow Fish. Using an expensive and novel combination of holographic foil stamping and watercolor, the Swiss-born Pfister and his publisher, NorthSouth Books, produced a striking visual package that proved irresistible. 'The effect of the stamping was so nice that all the bookshops here in Switzerland put it in the windows,' Pfister recalled in a 2013 interview with Publishers Weekly. 'We decided that I'd get only 50 percent of my usual royalties for the book, and only that way was it possible to make it work.'"[7]

Former conservative radio host Neal Boortz said that The Rainbow Fish in his view was, "…one of the biggest pieces of trash children's books ever published"[7] for the similar reasons to that of Welch, as Welch states in the Reason article, "…[the Rainbow Fish] only gets truly ostracized because he won't hand over his body parts on demand, in the name of equality."[7]

• http://www.marcuspfister.ch
• A supplemental Rainbow Fish craft for young children
• Rainbow Fish at VoiceChasers