Rainbow Fish Advent Calendar

Rating:
Summary: teaches kids it's okay to be jealous!
Review: This book teaches the wrong message. It is NOT about sharing. This book is about blackmailing others to be your friend by giving them things they want. Instead of enjoying what one has this book teaches jealousy.

Rating:
Summary: Rainbow Coalition
Review: This well-known book is a winner for the toddler set. The Rainbow Fish has brightly colored scales, and some of them shine like silver. In a design coup, the book shows the fish decorated with tiny metallic paper scales. The "oooooo" factor is high. Not only is the rainbow fish an attention getter, but author/illustrator Pfister's ocean backgrounds show an imaginative color range.

Fish's problem is whether beauty or friendship is more important. When the proud fish haughtily, angrily refuses a small blue fish's request for one of his scales, Rainbow gets a bad "rep," and the other fish ignore him. Rainbow Fish advances one level of maturity when he realizes the consequences:
"What good were the dazzling, shimmering scales with no one to admire them?" He reaches a somewhat more advanced level when a huge octopus, eyes gleaming in a purple-shadowed cave advises him to "'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.'" And so it happened: "the more he gave away, the more delighted he became."

I agree that Rainbow Fish's motivation isn't very altruistic, and that he also could have pointed out the non-shimmery qualities of the other fish. But this is a book for small toddlers, not a platform for budding Rand followers. Slightly older kids could be led into a discussion of defending Fish's solution or proposing alternatives, and the visual highlights might inspire some painting or drawing. Pfister first published the award-winning book in Switzerland ("Der Regenbogenfisch"); the translation is by J. Alison James.