The popularity of this book frightens me
Written: Feb 17 '01 (Updated Feb 17 '01)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Pretty pictures
Cons: Awful lesson
The Bottom Line: This popular book teaches a lesson that I find deeply disturbing. I cannot think of a children's book I'd recommend less.
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| mkaresh's Full Review: Rainbow Fish Books |
We've been given at least two copies of this book. The first time I read it to my daughter, it sickened me to think that this is a lesson I'm supposed to be teaching my children. Since then, if I read this book at all I tend to reword it quite a bit.
What could be so bad about a children's book? The story is basically this:
Rainbow Fish is the most beautiful fish in the sea, with many pretty scales. (The drawings in the book are also very nice, for that matter.) Another fish asks for just one of his scales, and Rainbow fish refuses. After that, no other fish will be his friend. He asks for advice, and is told to give his scales to the other fish. He then gives each of the other fish one of his scales, till they all have one of them. Then they are all the same, and thus can be friends.
What disturbs me so much about this tale of "sharing?" Well, there is the lesson noted by Tibwriter, the only other person not recommending this book: that you have to give things to people for them to like you, that you have to buy your friends.
But another lesson disturbs me even more. Rainbow Fish's scales are part of his body, something that belongs to him naturally. They make him individually unique. Because of this individuality, no one will be his friend. Only after he gives up his natural gifts to the others, so that he and they are all the same, will they be his friends. This book teaches that for people to like you you must do whatever you can to be no smarter, no more athletic, no more attractive, no more whatever than they are. That you should be just like everyone else if you want them to like you.
About the only thing scarier than this lesson is the fact that so many people seem to strongly agree with this lesson. At the time I write this, twelve people recommend this book, most of them highly, and only one does not. What am I missing here? Am I this out of touch with values in our society? I hope not, but maybe so.
Either way, Rainbow Fish teaches a lesson that I do not want my children to learn. I do not believe in destroying books, but if I did this would be the first to go.
Recommended:
No
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