The Story of Little Black Sambo

As a child I marveled at Sambo's ingeniousness in outsmarting the tigers and, in fact, maybe even being smarter than some adults. It never occurred to me that the parents names might be derogatory, if anything the names sounded exotic: Black Jumbo and Black Mumbo. Children are innocent and see things in a clean, clear manner. Whatever is considered "bad" in this book is the manufacture of over-sensitive adults.

This is a great classic and belongs in every library along with Grimm's Fairy Tales and Aesop Fables. One can revisit the magic of childhood through "Little Black Sambo".


crazy people   June 16, 2005
T. Cernetic (Cedarville, OH)
55 out of 62 found this review helpful

I remember reading this book as a child and loving the great exciting story. It just so happens that I grew up in Bangladesh which used to be part of India. I knew about the jungle, I knew about the tigers. I had inherited this book from my parents and grandparents and found it a delightful tale, quite similar to some of the Bengalis folk tales. My brother's best friend (Nazrul Islam was his given name)had the nickname by his family and friends of Kalo (in bangla it means black) because he had midnight dark skin. He was a terribly good looking boy (I had a small crush on him as a child) and never once did I or anyone else think of his nickname as degrading or insulting. He was just Kalo. When I returned to the US years later I was shocked to find that my little story book was the center of a great racial controversy. It was so crazy. It was a little book from India where some lady used the local customs and tales to write a story. When people criticize the book for being racist, all they are really doing is criticizing the culture of India. People are given Nicknames as descriptives in the Indian subcontinent. My nickname was Mamonie (little one). It just boggles my mind that people can find horror in even the most innocent simple things. And for those people who claim racism, watch yourself. For you are showing yourself biased against the culture of other people!


LET'S NEVER LOSE THE CLASSICS   October 9, 2000
42 out of 46 found this review helpful

The story of little black Sambo is truly a classic from all who remember it from our childhood.Helen Bannerman wrote this story for her two little children while traveling with them by train across India. If people would LOOK AT THE ILLUSTRATIONS they would see that Sambo is a little Indian boy from India, continents away from America and the Cival war and or South. I ran 2 independant bookstores some 12 to 14 years ago and when I finally found THE STORY OF LITTLE BLACK SAMBO in print again I'd order maybe 60 copies a week and could not keep this wonderful little storybook in stock. Almost every buyer were grandparents who could not wait to introduce their grandchildren to a book we all knew and loved. It is a must have for all collectors of wonderful literature!


a funny classic of children's literature   January 29, 1998
L. Larson
37 out of 55 found this review helpful

Written by a British woman living in India at the turn of the century to entertain her two daughters, Little Black Sambo quickly became a funny classic of children's literature (modern fantasy). It is a tale of a jolly, resourceful little boy who gives away his red coat and his blue trousers and his purple shoes and his green umbrella to the different tigers who want to eat him up. Then the tigers fight over which is the grandest tiger, and chase each other around a tree, not letting go of each others' tails until they turn into butter. Little Black Sambo rescues his clothing and his father takes the melted butter home so his mother can make pancakes. They all sit down to supper and Little Black Sambo eats the most pancakes because he is so very hungry.

This book has the language of story-telling which appeals to children. It is also good to let children play-act out the story. The pictures illustrate the story with humor as well. The simple words, and the highly effective repetition, capture the attention of both reader and listener, frightening them just enough to excite them.

One of the most successful books ever written for the two-to-five age group, each picture exactly illustrates a moment in the story. The text and pictures present non-white people as living in entirely primitive conditions, and as having no culture. Sambo communicates with animals, which seemed to imply that he is inferior, and close to the animal world. The illustrations are crudely drawn, grinning stereotypes with clownish eyes and huge mouths. The situation "Oh! Please Mr. Tiger, don't eat me up and I'll give you my beautiful little Red Coat" is the picture of the always docile black. Sambo's parents are called Black Jumbo and Black Mumbo, and these names are rather apt to harbor racial and religious intolerance (as in the phrase "mumbo-jumbo").

At the time she was writing the story, black had no unpleasant significance. Indians were quite prepared to talk about black; the derogatory idea crept in later. Bannerman did not have any sort of color prejudice: black was used to make an interesting story for children and a black child was a more romantic figure for a white child to read about. It was inevitable that a woman of Bannerman's background and period would think and write as she did. Her outlook is certainly racist in the context of today, and would have no place in a multi-racial society.

This book has been repeatedly challenged as an acceptance of white superiority, and is still banned from libraries, showing an awareness of the deep roots of racism in our history, culture, and language.


Great little story!   September 4, 2000
31 out of 36 found this review helpful

Digging through an old box, I found my tiny, tattered little book of Little Black Sambo, which is very old as it was my dad's before mine! I LOVED this book as a child, I am 30 now, and can't wait to share it with my own children. I remember just staring at the brilliantly colored illustrations and being entranced by the whole story line---even a little scared at the tigers! I really did wonder if tigers running in circles could make butter and I even think I asked my dad if it was real!

I have to say that I am pleasantly surprised to see that you can still purchase this book, although in the original format I have no idea. It is too bad that libraries would think to ban a book like this----I am a "white" person who is totally colorblind and I have to say that reading and loving Little Black Sambo as a child never made me want to be racist or gave me racist thoughts. It is a work of fiction, and even as a child I knew that it was just a story.

Anyways--this is a great read for grownups and for reading to little ones--and it is a good thing, I guess, that you can also purchase a politically correct version to share with children of any color also--because the story line is the fun part of the book.

KT