Books Like The Rainbow Fish — 9 That Get Sharing Right

If your child asks for The Rainbow Fish again, the useful question is not whether the book is any good. It is which of its three lessons they walked away with — that you give pieces of yourself away to be liked, that being unusual is a problem, or simply that they would like a friend. Those are three different children, and the nine books below are grouped that way.

Which book should I read after The Rainbow Fish?#

What is The Rainbow Fish actually saying?#

Written by

Marcus Pfister

First published

1992

Ages

3–7

Format

Picture book and board book

The Rainbow Fish was written and illustrated by Marcus Pfister and first published in German in 1992 as Der Regenbogenfisch. It has sold more than thirty million copies. A beautiful fish with shining scales is lonely; on an octopus's advice he gives the scales away one at a time; by the end he has one shimmering scale left and a great many friends.

Here is the position, and it is the reason this article is organised the way it is: the book is worth reading and its moral is worth arguing with. Both readings are genuinely in the text. Publishers Weekly described it as a cautionary tale about selfishness and vanity — the fish is proud, he learns, he joins the group. Critics read the same pages and see conformity enforced by peer pressure: the fish is ostracised until he hands over his body parts on demand. In 2020 the playwright Topher Payne wrote an alternate ending on exactly that objection.

You do not have to pick a side to use the book well. You have to notice which reading your four-year-old took.

And there is a reason to care. Generosity in small children does not appear to work like a trade. Rodolfo Cortes Barragan and Carol Dweck, writing in PNAS in 2014, found that simple reciprocal interaction — ordinary back-and-forth play — triggered children's benevolence, and they note that earlier research found the opposite of what you might expect: explicitly rewarding or encouraging helping lowers it. Warneken and Tomasello had shown in 2008 that twenty-month-olds who were given a material reward for helping went on to help less than those given nothing at all.

Read that beside the plot and the discomfort has a name. The Rainbow Fish's generosity is a transaction — scales for acceptance — and transaction is the one shape the research says does not build the habit.

If they took "give things away to be liked"#

1. Stone Soup — Marcia Brown (1947). Ages 3–7.

Written by

Marcia Brown

First published

1947

Ages

3–7

Format

Picture book

The direct answer, and the reason it belongs first. Three hungry soldiers set a pot of water boiling with a stone in it; one villager offers a carrot, another an onion, and by the end the whole village eats. Nobody has less than they started with. That is generosity that multiplies instead of subtracting, which is exactly what the Rainbow Fish never gets to experience. Children who have just watched a fish dismantle himself find this enormously satisfying, and the suspicious-villagers opening reads beautifully out loud.

2. The Giving Tree — Shel Silverstein (1964). Ages 5–9.

Written by

Shel Silverstein

First published

1964

Ages

5–9

Format

Picture book

The other famous book about giving yourself away, and I would hand it to an older child deliberately rather than as a comfort. The tree gives the boy her apples, her branches, her trunk, and ends a stump. It has divided readers for sixty years for the same reason the Rainbow Fish does. Read them as a pair with a six-year-old and you have the best conversation either book can give you. ⚠️ Do not reach for it if the sharing question has already made your child anxious — it does not resolve.

If they took "being different is a problem"#

3. Elmer — David McKee (1989). Ages 2–6.

Written by

David McKee

First published

1989

Ages

2–6

Format

Board book and picture book

The patchwork elephant paints himself grey to be like everyone else, and the herd is duller for it. It is the cleanest available rebuttal: the thing that makes Elmer unusual is the thing his friends actually want back. Where the Rainbow Fish subtracts to belong, Elmer discovers he was already what the group needed. Bright, funny, and short enough for a three-year-old.

4. Little Blue and Little Yellow — Leo Lionni (1959). Ages 3–7.

Written by

Leo Lionni

First published

1959

Ages

3–7

Format

Picture book

Two torn-paper blobs hug until they turn green and their parents no longer recognise them. It is almost abstract, and small children accept it completely. For a child who loved the Rainbow Fish's shimmer more than its plot, this is the same pleasure — colour doing the storytelling — without any lesson about earning friends.

If what stung was the exclusion#

5. Each Kindness — Jacqueline Woodson, illustrated by E. B. Lewis (2012). Ages 5–9.

Written by

Jacqueline Woodson

Illustrated by

E. B. Lewis

First published

2012

Ages

5–9

Format

Picture book

The bravest book on this list. A new girl arrives, the narrator freezes her out, and then the girl leaves — and there is no chance to make it right. It refuses the tidy ending, which is precisely why children remember it. If your child's takeaway from the Rainbow Fish was that being left out is fixed by giving something away, this quietly says the real repair is not to leave someone out in the first place. Read it when you have ten minutes afterwards to sit with it.

6. The Invisible Boy — Trudy Ludwig, illustrated by Patrice Barton (2013). Ages 5–9.

Written by

Trudy Ludwig

Illustrated by

Patrice Barton

First published

2013

Ages

5–9

Format

Picture book

Gentler, and the practical companion to Each Kindness. A boy nobody notices is drawn in grey while the class is in colour, and he gains colour as one classmate includes him. The illustration does the argument, so a five-year-old follows it without being told what to feel.

If they simply want a book about having a friend#

7. Frog and Toad Are Friends — Arnold Lobel (1970). Ages 4–8.

Written by

Arnold Lobel

First published

1970

Ages

4–8

Format

Picture book

After a book where friendship is bought, this is friendship as ordinary practice: waiting for a letter, looking for a lost button, swimming in a silly bathing suit. Five short stories, so it works as one bedtime each. It is also an early reader, which makes it the natural next step for a child moving past picture books.

8. The Rabbit Listened — Cori Doerrfeld (2018). Ages 3–7.

Written by

Cori Doerrfeld

First published

2018

Ages

3–7

Format

Picture book

Taylor's block tower falls and every animal arrives with advice; only the rabbit sits beside Taylor and says nothing. Short, very quiet, and the one to reach for when your child has gone still after a story rather than chatty. It teaches the opposite of the octopus's advice.

9. Last Stop on Market Street — Matt de la Peña, illustrated by Christian Robinson (2015). Ages 4–8.

Written by

Matt de la Peña

Illustrated by

Christian Robinson

First published

2015

Ages

4–8

Format

Picture book

CJ rides across town with his grandmother, asking why they do not have a car, and she keeps turning his questions into something better. It moves the conversation from "should I give my things away" to noticing what is already around you — which is where a six-year-old asking fairness questions actually wants to go.

How do you read The Rainbow Fish aloud without teaching the wrong lesson?#

You do not have to skip it, and you should not lecture over it. Two small things are enough:

• Stop on the page where he gives away the first scale and ask what your child thinks will happen. Their answer tells you which reading they are running.
• Ask one question at the end. "Did he have to give his scales away to have friends?" Then say nothing. Four-year-olds have opinions about this and they are worth hearing.
• Do not correct the book. A story your child is allowed to disagree with is a better story than one they are told the meaning of.

What to read next#

• Books about kindness for kids — the same territory, sorted by the situation a parent is actually facing.
• Books like Brown Bear, Brown Bear — for a younger child who is in it for the rhythm rather than the moral.
• Every article in the journal — all our reading guides in one list.

What if the fish who gives something away is your child? A personalized storybook, answered#

Every book above is somebody else's child learning the lesson. That is most of what a shelf can offer, and it is why the same question comes back at the end of a bedtime: would I have given the scales away?

There is one version of that story no publisher can print in advance — the one where the child being generous is yours. KindFable takes one photo and a few sentences about something that actually happened, and paints a 32-page picture book where your child is the hero on every page, in one of nine art styles. Up to three companions can come along: a sibling, a grandparent, the dog. If the thing you want them to keep is the memory of being kind to someone last week, that is the book — not a fish, and not a moral, but them.

It works because the story comes from you. Write the real moment into the story box and the book argues nothing; it just shows your child doing the thing. If you want to see the shape of one first, a personalized storybook walks through a whole one built from a single bedtime wish.

The actual book

Read it, and hear it

Everything below is the finished book — not a mock-up, not a selection of the good pages.

The photo they uploaded

The character we drew

Read Nova's Golden KeyAll 13 spreads, exactly as the family received them, in the same page-flip reader they use at home.Open the book

The full story, in text

1. 1Dust danced in the morning sun as Nova opened the old toy box. She remembered the golden key and said, "I want to find it."
2. 2First came a wooden drum, then three soft balls and a jumble of puzzles. Beneath them all, something gave one small golden glimmer.
3. 3Nova lifted the drum. A noisy avalanche of blocks rolled over her knees, but the key stayed hidden under the puzzles.
4. 4Next, she sorted the puzzles by shape. A round piece fitted nowhere, and the key remained tucked beneath the last blue puzzle.
5. 5She made a careful map with a wax crayon. The map led straight to a sock, which held only a button and a crumb.
6. 6Nova tried the bottom corner, tapping twice with a block. The box answered with a hollow clonk, yet no key appeared.
7. 7Nova lifted the cloth rabbit and peeked behind it. Only a pair of wooden wheels rolled free, chasing one another across the rug.
8. 8She emptied one whole side onto the rug. Under the old games and ribbons, there was dust, a marble and still no golden key.
9. 9The playroom went very quiet. Nova rested her hand on the box and wondered, "Was the golden key really hiding here?"
10. 10Her hands forgot their hurry. Then Nova noticed a shallow wooden tray beneath the lining, and its corner lifted when she pressed it.
11. 11Nova lifted the lining slowly. There it was, the small golden key, shining in the hidden tray. She found it herself, exactly where she hoped.
12. 12Nova placed the golden key safely beside the old toy box. The playroom filled with its warm glow, and she smiled at what she had found.

The painted cover is free — you see your child on the front of their own book, with their name on it, before you decide anything. After that it is a softcover or a hardcover (the current prices sit on one page, and the hardcover ships free with the whole story narrated), and every book comes with its own song written from the text.

Start with the photo, or read a real book first.

Book covers are shown unaltered for identification, sourced from Open Library. Each cover remains the property of its publisher and illustrator. KindFable is not affiliated with any of the books recommended here.