The Pout-Pout Fish

I read this a bunch last year but never logged it apparently! It's a cute book, good rhymes. The end bit is a little inappropriate but overall cute.

Looks like if you submit a review through the Kindle app, it overwrites an existing goodreads review. Oops... So now you get to see both.

First up, my Amazon review. Less thorough but gets to the point immediately:

Nope. Terrible lesson for kids!

A little fish is sad. His friends bully him for it by telling him that his frown is unattractive and he's being a downer - that he should just smile and have hope instead. Then a female fish he's never met before comes along, kisses him, and swims away. Suddenly, he's happy and goes around kissing everyone he sees. The final line, presented as if the moral, is: “Sometimes a kiss is all it takes to turn things around.”

Here's a better idea: don't teach kids to torment people with depression or general sadness and not to accept being treated that way. And definitely don't condone kissing or accepting kisses from total strangers without consent!

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And now, the review I wrote for goodreads which includes quotes and more details:

Wow, so... I don't even know how to articulate how much I hate the message of this book. I wouldn't let it near any child I cared about, unless they were too young to understand the words. And even then, I'd be hesitant because it portrays a fish being very sad and his so-called friends making him feel worse about it then a whole bunch of random kissing.

No, you did not read that wrong.

This book is about the “pout-pout” fish who is both sad (enough it reads as depression to me, as someone who deals with that issue myself) and just generally a fish with downturned lips. It's difficult to tell which is intended more prominently, because he mentions that it's just his face and how he is - which could be literal or metaphorical. Either way, the fact he's sad and/or pouting is referred to as spreading a dreary mood... because who cares about the poor fish who's pouting, I guess?

I'm a pout-pout fish
with a pout-pout face,
so I spread the dreary-wearies
all over the place.

inferring

just smile

unappealing

“Hey, Mr. Fish,
you kaleidoscope of mope,
how about a smile?
A little joy? A little hope?”

“Hey, Mr. Fish,
let me tell it to you straight,
your hulky-bulky sulking
is an unattractive trait!”

not

Sometimes a kiss is all it takes to turn things around.

The ending is ABRUPT lol. But an interesting under the sea book anyway.