The Rainbow Fish is a children's picture book drawn and written by Swiss author and illustrator, Marcus Pfister, and translated into English by J. Alison James. The book is best known for the distinctive shiny foil scales of the Rainbow Fish. Decode Entertainment turned the story into an animated television series of the same name, which aired on the HBO Family television channel in the United States and Teletoon in Canada from 1999 until 2000.
Plot
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 shoal also have scales, but only scales matching to their real colors. However, they wish that they had shiny silver scales just like Rainbow Fish. One day, a small blue fish (named Blue in the TV series) who envied the shiny silver scales asks the Rainbow Fish if he could have one of his. The Rainbow Fish refuses in a 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 (named Wanda in the TV series) for advice. When he goes to the cave where she lives, he sees Wanda the octopus. Wanda (in a deep voice) says that she has been waiting for him. Then 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 tries to say that he cannot share his favorite scales, but Wanda 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 shared all his scales and only had one shiny scale left.
Theme
A Publishers Weekly reviewer called the book a "cautionary tale about selfishness and vanity".
Its central theme is about the importance of sharing with others and how that leads to happiness.
Origin of the Rainbow Fish
The Rainbow Fish was originally published in 1992. At that time, Marcus Pfister suggested using holographic foil for the scales, a technique used in graphic design but not yet seen in children's books. Pfister says in an interview, "The expense was a big issue. Because of the foil, each copy of the book cost double the amount of the normal price of producing a book. With the cost, it was quite difficult for Davy [the editor] to decide whether to do the foil. So we decided that I’d get only 50% of my usual royalties for the book, and only that way was it possible to make it work."
The Rainbow Fish was developed from another book Pfister had previously illustrated, The Sleepy Owl. In an interview with Publishers Weekly, Pfister said, "Well, I had published some other books after The Sleepy Owl – there were some Christmas books and Penguin Pete – but Brigitte Sidjanski, founder of NordSud, had always liked my first book, and suggested I do another book similar to that. So I thought that if a new book was to have something in common with that book, the character should resemble an owl. But I really didn’t want to draw another bird. Then one day, I had a copy of The Sleepy Owl by my desk, and I looked closely at that character, and I realized I could create a fish character that would be quite similar to the owl. So the feathers became scales. And then I began thinking about the story, and I came up with the idea of a colorful fish."
Book series
There are sequels in the Rainbow Fish book series: