Story of Little Black Sambo

A clever young boy outwits a band of voracious tigers and returns home in triumph to a splendid feast of a yard-high stack of pancakes. The story, penned by Helen Brodie Bannerman for her two daughters in 1889, has captured the imagination of readers around the world and across many generations. But the pictures which accompanied her text were crudely stereotypical and hurtful to many. Caldecott Honor-winning artist Christopher Bing has spent almost fifteen years rediscovering the joy and energy of the original story. He respects that Bannerman was writing in an Indian setting and with Indian animals—after all, there are no tigers in Africa—and faithfully adheres to the original text. However, recognizing that the image of Sambo has been used as a symbol of repression of Africans and African-Americans, Christopher Bing celebrates Sambo as proudly African, a child of beauty and joy, wit and resourcefulness.

In recreating the illusion of an antique, weathered, tiger-clawed storybook filled with exquisitely detailed paintings that draw upon a lush jungle-inspired palette, Christopher Bing's interpretation of Sambo's world seamlessly melds a grand sense of wonder with the minutiae of nature, and a story with history.

Author Biography: Christopher Bing first developed a passion for the story of Little Black Sambo when it was read to him as a child. While studying at the Rhode Island School of Design, he began what has been a twenty-year labor of love of illustrating the work in a manner which would appropriately celebrate and respect both its heritage and its readership. A widely published editiorialartist contributing to many national newspapers and magazines, he lives with his wife and three children in Lexington, Massachusetts.

Helen Bannerman (1862-1946) was born in Scotland. The daughter of a chaplain who was posted to foreign countries, she lived for over thirty years in India. She married a doctor in the Indian Medical Service, and they had two daughters. The Story Of Little Black Sambo was written by Mrs. Bannerman to amuse her young girls during a long train journey and first published in 1899.