Little Black Sambo
 |
Little Black Sambo, from the cover of the 1899 edition |
The Story of Little Black Sambo, a children's book by
Helen Bannerman, a
Scot living in
India, was first published in 1899. In the tale, the little boy has to sacrifice his new red coat and his new blue trousers and his new purple shoes to a tiger that wears his shoes on his ears, but Sambo outwits these predators and returns safely home, where he eats 169 pancakes for his supper. The story was a children's favorite for half a century before it became
controversial. The story takes place in a
fairy tale India, and the tigers racing around the tree are turned into
ghee, rendered as "butter."
The book has a controversial history. Many consider the work to contain
racist caricatures and stereotypes, and the word "
sambo", partly as a result of the book, has a long history as a racial slur. The original illustrations portray Sambo in classic, "darky" iconographical form (see
Blackface), with inky skin, wild hair and bright red lips.
However, regardless of the degree of racism in the original story, many pirated versions were knocked off at a cheaper price, gaining
Little Black Sambo greater availability in its day. These imitations often were more degrading, as pointed out in an
on-line essay by Barbara Bader.
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. This version was a best-seller.
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 modern printing with the original title, in 2003, substituted more racially sensitive illustrations by
Christopher Bing, in which, for example, Sambo is no longer so inky black. 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.'"
The book has been controversial in
Japan as well, both for
racism and
piracy.
Little Black Sambo (the Japanese title is
Chibikuro Sambo) was first published in Japan by
Iwanami Shoten Publishing in 1953. The book was a pirated version of the original, and it contained drawings by
Frank Dobias that had appeared in a US edition published by
Macmillan Publishers in 1927. Sambo was illustrated as an African boy rather than as an Indian boy. Although it did not contain Bannerman's original illustrations, the pirated book was long mistaken for the original version in Japan. It sold over 1,000,000 copies before it was pulled off the shelves in 1988 after being accused of depicting racist characterizations. Just after Iwanami's success, most of the Japanese publishers, including
Kodansha and
Shogakukan, the two largest publishers in Japan, published their versions of pirated
Little Black Sambo. In 1988, all these publishers followed Iwanami and withdrew their books from the market altogether.
In 1997, a race-free version of the book,
Chibikuro Sampo ("sampo" means "taking a walk" in Japanese), replacing the protagonist with a black
Labrador puppy that goes for a stroll in the jungle, was published by
Mori Marimo from
Kitaooji Shobo Publishing in
Kyoto. The same year, the translations of the two other race-free versions appeared:
Sam and the Tigers, by
Julius Lester and
Jerry Pinkney, and
The Story of Little Babaji, by
Fred Marcellino .
Bannerman's original was first published with a translation of
Masahisa Nadamoto by
Komichi Shobo Publishing,
Tokyo, in
1999.
The Iwanami version, with its controversial Dobias's 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 after fifty years of its first appearance.
* Barbara Bader, "Sambo, Babaji, and Sam,"
The Horn Book Magazine. September-October 1996, vol. 72, no. 5, p. 536.
* Phyllis Settecase Barton,
Pictus Orbis Sambo: A Publishing History, Checklist and Price Guide for The Story of Little Black Sambo (1899-1999) Centennial Collector's Guide. Pictus Orbis Press, Sun City, CA.
*
List of banned books*A
Zambo is a person with Black and Amerindian ancestry.
*
Ethnic issues in Japan#Allegations of Anti-Black Racism*
Free ebook of The Story of Little Black Sambo at
Project Gutenberg - text-only edition
*
Free ebook of The Story of Little Black Sambo at
Project Gutenberg - illustrated by [Florence White Williams]
*
Review in the Boston Globe*
Helen Bannerman on the Train to Kodaikanal
