The Story of Little Black Sambo

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 colorful new clothes, shoes, and umbrella so they will not eat him. The tigers are vain and each thinks he is better dressed than the others. They chase each other around a tree until they are reduced to a pool of ghee (clarified butter). Sambo then recovers his clothes and collects the ghee, which his mother uses to make pancakes. Despite controversy concerning the racism of illustrations of other contemporary editions, we reprint the original American Edition by The Stokes Company. The illustrations therein are more of the type done to illustrate contemporary children’s books, and which do not reflect the patent racism of other editions of Little Black Sambo; editions that clearly pandered to racist sentiment at the time.