The Story of Little Black Sambo

By Helen Bannerman

Book Overview

In a gloriously illustrated new edition of the 1889 original, a young boy outwits a gang of voracious tigers and feasts on a yard-high stack of pancakes. Award-winning artist Christopher Bing has brilliantly tackled the task of transforming what have been deeply stereotypical and racist images of an African child into a celebration of resourcefulness and wit. An introduction by an African-American scholar is included, placing the work in historical context and addressing the propriety of reissuing this text.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1929766556
• ISBN13: 9781929766550
• Release Date: November 2003
• Publisher: Chronicle Books
• Length: 40 Pages
• Weight: 1.38 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 9.0" x 13.0"
• Age Range: 12 years and under
• Grade Range: Preschool to Grade 7

Customer Reviews

Beautiful Book

This is such a beautiful book! It has wonderful illustrations, and brings back warm memories of eating at a pancake house where they gave out this story when I was a little girl.

outstanding

used this for a read-aloud and all my classes loved the pictures of this timeless tale fellow teachers enjoyed the history in the back as well

Sanity reigns over "political correctness"

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".