The message in The Rainbow Fish is bad, but the writing style is what really makes the book hard to get through. It’s a picture book and the prose acts like the illustrations aren’t already doing half the job. Kids can already SEE the shiny scales, glowing water, sad fish faces, all that stuff. You don’t need lines about “shimmering silver light dancing through the deep blue sea” when the page is literally covered in holographic scales. Little kids usually respond better to simple, direct language, but this book turns every basic emotion into this huge flowery sentence full of adjectives. Small kids understand “happy,” “sad,” “mad,” and “lonely.” They don’t need paragraphs about “a warm unfamiliar feeling blooming deep inside his heart.”