The Story of Little Black Sambo facts for kids
1st edition
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| Author | Helen Bannerman |
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| Illustrator | Helen Bannerman |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Children's literature |
| Publisher | Grant Richards, London |
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Publication date
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1899 |
| Media type | |
The Story of Little Black Sambo is a children's book written and illustrated by Scottish author Helen Bannerman and published by Grant Richards in October 1899. As one in a series of small-format books called The Dumpy Books for Children, the story was popular for more than half a century.
Critics of the time observed that Bannerman presents one of the first Black heroes in children's literature and regarded the book as positively portraying Black characters in both the text and pictures, especially in comparison to books of that era that depicted Blacks as simple and uncivilised. However, it became an object of allegations of racism in the mid-20th century, due to the names of the characters being racial slurs for dark-skinned people, and the fact the illustrations were, as Langston Hughes put it, in the pickaninny style. Both text and illustrations have since undergone considerable revisions.
Contents
Plot
Sambo is a South Indian boy who lives with his father and mother, named Black Jumbo and Black Mumbo respectively. While out walking, Sambo encounters four hungry tigers, and surrenders his colourful new clothes, shoes and umbrella so that they will not eat him. The tigers are vain and each thinks that he is better dressed than the others. They have a massive argument and chase each other around a tree until they are reduced to a pool of ghee (clarified butter). Sambo recovers his clothes and goes home, and his father later collects the ghee, which his mother uses to make pancakes.
Modern versions
In 1961, Whitman Publishing Company released an edition illustrated by Violet LaMont. Her colorful pictures show an Indian family wearing bright Indian clothes. The story of the boy and the tigers is as described in the plot section above.
In 1996, noted illustrator Fred Marcellino observed that the story itself contained no racist overtones and produced a re-illustrated version, The Story of Little Babaji, which changes the characters' names but otherwise leaves the text unmodified.
Julius Lester, in his Sam and the Tigers, also published in 1996, recast "Sam" as a hero of the mythical Sam-sam-sa-mara, where all the characters were named "Sam".
A printing with the original title, in 2003, substituted more racially sensitive illustrations by Christopher Bing, portraying Sambo, in his publisher's words, as "a glorious and unabashedly African child". It was chosen for the Kirkus 2003 Editor's Choice list. Some critics were still unsatisfied. Dr Alvin F. Poussaint said of the 2003 publication: "I don't see how I can get past the title and what it means. It would be like ... trying to do 'Little Black Darky' and saying, 'As long as I fix up the character so he doesn't look like a darky on the plantation, it's OK.'"
In 1997 Kitaooji Shobo Publishing in Kyoto obtained formal license from the UK publisher, and republished the work under the title of Chibikuro Sampo (In Japanese, "Chibi" means "little,""kuro" means black, and "Sampo" means a stroll, a kind of pun for the original word "Sambo"). The protagonist is depicted as a black Labrador puppy that goes for a stroll in the jungle; no humans appear in the edition. The Association To Stop Racism Against Blacks still refers to the book in this edition as discriminatory.
Bannerman's original was first published with a translation of Masahisa Nadamoto by Komichi Shobo Publishing, Tokyo, in 1999.
In 2004 a Little Golden Book version was published, The Boy and the Tigers, with new names and illustrations by Valeria Petrone. The boy is called Little Rajani.
The Iwanami version, with its controversial Dobias illustrations and without the proper copyright, was re-released in April 2005 in Japan by a Tokyo-based publisher Zuiunsya, because Iwanami's copyright expired fifty years after its first appearance.
It was retold as "Little Kim" in a storybook and cassette as part of the Once Upon a Time Fairy Tale Series where Sambo is called "Kim", his father Jumbo is "Tim" and his mother Mumbo is "Sim".
Adaptations
A board game was produced in 1924 and re-issued in 1945, with different artwork. Essentially the game followed the storyline, starting and ending at home.
In the 1930s Wyandotte Toys used a pickaninny caricature "Sambo" image for a dart-gun target.
An animated version of the story was produced in 1935 as part of Ub Iwerks' ComiColor series.
In 1939 Little Nipper (RCA Records for children) issued, in addition to a record storybook set of the traditional story, a 2 45-RPM record storybook set entitled "Little Black Sambo's Jungle Band", narrated by Paul Wing. In the story Little Black Sambo (in India) goes for a walk in the jungle and encounters a variety of animals, each with its own distinctive instrument (e.g., elephant with a tuba, "big baboon with a big bassoon", honey bear with a "perfectly peach piccolo", and a long green snake "playing its scales"). They each play a distinctive song for him, and then elect him to be their band director. By trial and error he trains them to play and harmonize together. In short, he is the talented hero of the story.
Columbia Records issued a 1946 version on two 78 RPM records with narration by Don Lyon. It was issued in a folder with artwork showing Sambo to be quite black indeed, though the narrative preserves the locale as India.
In 1961 HMV Junior Record Club issued a dramatised version – words by David Croft, music by Cyril Ornadel – with Susan Hampshire in the title role and narrated by Ray Ellington.
Restaurant
An independent restaurant founded in 1957 in Lincoln City, Oregon, is named Lil' Sambo's after the fictional character.
Coincidentally, Sambo's was a popular US restaurant chain of the 1950s through 1970s that borrowed characters from the book (including Sambo and the tigers) for promotional purposes, although the Sambo name was originally a blend of the founders' names and nicknames: Sam (Sam Battistone) and Bo (Newell Bohnett). For a period in the late 1970s, some locations were renamed "The Jolly Tiger". The controversy about the book led to accusations of racism that contributed to the 1,117-restaurant chain's demise in the early 1980s. Images inspired by the book (now considered by some racially insensitive) were common interior decorations in the restaurants. Though portions of the original chain were renamed "No Place Like Sam's" to try to forestall closure, all but the original restaurants in Santa Barbara, California, had closed by 1983. The original location, owned by Battistone's grandson Chad Stevens, existed in Santa Barbara under the name "Sambo's" until June 2020. The name on the original Sambo's sign was temporarily changed to the motto "☮ & LOVE" (where "☮" is the Unicode symbol for "peace," U+262E), due to pressure from the Black Lives Matter group during the George Floyd protests and a separate signature drive that collected thousands of signatures. In July 2020, the restaurant was officially renamed to "Chad's".
See also
In Spanish: Little Black Sambo para niños
