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Title: The Story of Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman ISBN: 0397300069 Publisher: Harpercollins Juvenile Books Pub. Date: July, 1923 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.99

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Average Customer Rating: 4.78

Rating: 5
Summary: Great little story!
Comment: 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

Rating: 5
Summary: a funny classic of children's literature
Comment: 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.

Rating: 5
Summary: Sanity reigns over "political correctness"
Comment: Wonderful children's book and one I've heard and read over and over when I was young - glad it's back in print.

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".