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I am currently a university student and feel that it is important for parents to understand how this book damaged my social life. I spent my childhood worrying that if I did not give people nice things or did not meet their demands, they would not befriend me. I was vulnerable pre-school student when The Rainbow Fish was originally released. As an impressionable five year old, I absorbed this message and this resulted in major social conflicts during my youth. It has been 15 years since this book was first read to me and I still despise it. The book basically brain washed me into thinking that if I give other children nice things, they will be my friends. I would willingly agree and often had nothing left for myself.
How about teaching children to befriend people who like them for who they are, not just when you give them nice things. Our teacher was excited, it was a new release, included beautiful images, and she thought it would convey a valuable message. I'm now twenty and luckily I have overcome the self-esteem problem that this book encouraged. The main character has beautiful rainbow scales and the other sea creatures refuse to befriend him until he gave everyone a scale, resulting with the fish having nothing left for himself. During lunch time, the other students would ask if they could take parts of my lunch or if I could give them some of my lunch money. My experience might have been an extreme case, I'm not sure, but I do put a lot of the blame on this book. Please avoid reading this garbage to your children.There are tons of children's books out there with useful messages, and this isn't one of them.0 stars
In a nutshell, the message is: give away your most prized possessions to any random acquaintence so that you may avoid being ostracized, and if you give of yourself (to your substantial loss) others may "include" you, even if only for a fraction of a second. The notions it teaches are akin to those believed by people who suffer from a Self Sacrificing schema. This book is worse than bad, it is potentially damaging. If you take the book one step beyond, and postulate what happens after these so-called new "friends" are done celebrating their ill-gotten gains, one may wonder how long Rainbow Fish's warm & fuzzy feeling lasts once those bought (fake) friends decide to turn their attention onto other facinations or get annoyed when Rainbow Fish has nothing left to give. That is, if I keep giving and giving and giving, maybe someday people will love me and meet my needs. The only possible use I would have for this book is to provide an example for Self Sacrificing people to see that this strategy is self defeating. It's not a pretty scenario. I hope this book falls by the wayside FAST.
This book starts out talking about a beautiful fish with shiny scales, who refuses to give his scales away, when asked to by a random smaller fish. It reminds me of a very lonely child at school who gives people things so others will like him. Because of his refusal he becomes lonely as no one wants to be around him, until gives away his scales and has many friends due to his sharing and generosity.As a parent I understand the need to teach our children to share, and to be giving. However, The Rainbow Fish goes a bit beyond that, telling a story where you are not able to have friends unless you give them gifts. On the up-side it does speak of the happiness that can be found in giving things to others (Why I gave it two stars) and the illustrations are very captivating - especially for toddlers and infants. Overall I would Not recommend this book to other parents, even with all the pretty pictures.
Someone I love dearly gave it to my son, so I could not avoid reading this to him. If you believe in personal effort to achieve goals for your children, do not read this to them. The message of mediocrity as a goal is painful to articulate to your child, unless you see no hope for them.
I was very happy when I looked up this book and saw the multitude of negative reviews.This book is purely and simply a tool to program kids and indoctrinate them into a socialist mindset.It disgusts me that our children are now being taught that being special is bad, and that their goal should be to lower themselves to the same level of the masses. Or that they should expect others to surrender what makes them special for the benefit of the populace.This is not about sharing. this is about making Harrison Bergeron a reality.
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