The Rainbow Fish Summary: Story, Characters and Meaning
What The Rainbow Fish is about
The Rainbow Fish is a picture book written and illustrated by the Swiss author and artist Marcus Pfister, first published in 1992 as Der Regenbogenfisch and translated into English by J. Alison James. It is short, it is read to very young children, and it has one of the most recognisable covers in children's publishing thanks to the foil scales that catch the light on the page.
The story takes place in the ocean. A small rainbowfish swims with a shoal, but he does not look like the rest of them. His scales are blue, green, violet and pink, and scattered among them are shiny silver ones that nothing else in the water can match. He knows it. The other fish know it too.
One day a small blue fish asks him for a single silver scale. The Rainbow Fish refuses, and refuses rudely. The little fish tells the others how he was spoken to, and word travels. The shoal stops wanting to play with him. He is still the most beautiful fish in the sea, and he is now entirely alone.
That is the engine of the book. A character has something everyone admires, discovers that admiration is not company, and has to work out what to do about it. For a book of a few hundred words, it sets the problem up cleanly.
The main characters
The Rainbow Fish himself is the whole story. He is not a villain. He is proud, a little spoiled by attention, and genuinely puzzled when the attention stops. Children recognise him immediately, because the instinct to clutch the best thing you own is one they are still arguing with.
The small blue fish, named Blue in the later television series, is the one who asks for a scale. His request is modest and his disappointment is the first crack in the Rainbow Fish's world.
The starfish is the only friend who stays. His role is small but important: he does not lecture, he simply points the Rainbow Fish towards someone who can help.
The wise octopus, called Wanda in the television series, lives in a cave and gives the story its turning point. She says she has been expecting him, because the waves have carried his story to her. Her advice is blunt. He must give his scales away. He will no longer be the most beautiful fish in the sea, but he may discover how to be happy. When he protests that he cannot part with them, she vanishes in a cloud of ink and leaves him to decide for himself.
How it ends
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The Rainbow Fish meets the small blue fish again and hands over one silver scale. He watches the little fish's delight, and although a scale is gone, he feels better straight away. Other fish gather and ask for scales of their own, and he shares one with each of them until nearly every fish in the ocean carries a glint of silver. He keeps one. He has given away almost everything that made him remarkable, and he is happy for the first time in the book.
The themes
Sharing is the headline, and the book is best known for its message about selfishness. But the more interesting thread underneath is identity. The Rainbow Fish has built his whole sense of himself on being the most beautiful thing in the water. Wanda's advice asks him to give that up without promising what will replace it. The happiness arrives only after the risk is taken.
There is a point about friendship too. Nobody in the shoal objects to his beauty. They object to how he uses it. The scales are not the problem; the refusal is. And the book handles consequence honestly for its age group. He is not punished by an adult. The other fish simply stop coming near him, which is exactly how playground exclusion works.
Why it still matters
Three decades on, The Rainbow Fish remains a fixture of nursery shelves, library story times and early years classrooms, largely because it does one idea properly and gives teachers and parents something concrete to talk about afterwards. The foil scales are part of that staying power. They make the object itself feel like treasure, which is the point the story is making.
Its reach went beyond the page. Decode Entertainment adapted it into an animated television series of the same name, which ran on HBO Family in the United States and Teletoon in Canada from 1999 to 2000, expanding the cast with names such as Blue and Wanda.
It suits readers aged roughly three to seven, adults looking for a first conversation about generosity, and anyone drawn to picture books where the artwork does as much work as the words.
