When I first saw the title, I thought I had misread it.
“Little Brave Sambo.” That didn’t sound right. All of the books I had seen about this little boy’s encounter with four tigers were summarily titled “Little Black Sambo.”
What was this all about?
This time, it was the title of a children’s 78-rpm record lying under some useless papers in a box at the auction house and not a book. It was made by Peter Pan Records, copyrighted in 1950. The paper label on the record itself was inscribed in ink: “From Aunt Enid. Merry Christmas.”
Obviously, I was intrigued by this new title, so I Googled. I found several other versions of a solo book, but also some record-book sets. Peter Pan Records produced a version of the story with a red-headed white boy in 1971. It seems that this title may be newer, but the story is the same:
A little boy goes for a walk in the jungle wearing his new set of clothes, which he’s forced to give up to four tigers or be eaten. The tigers fight among themselves over who looks the grandest in the pillaged garments, clinging to each other’s tail and churning themselves into butter.
“Little Black Sambo” was first published in 1899 by Helen Bannerman for her children when she lived in India with her husband. The little boy in the book was Indian, but the illustrations painted him as a boy with black skin and red lips – the handpicked image for black children in this country by many publishers and society. The name Sambo itself was a derogatory term for African Americans. Many of the earlier illustrations of black boys and girls – boys, especially – were horrid images, caricatures of their facial features aimed at making them appear non-human.
“Little Black Sambo” has long been a source of consternation for African Americans, but many other people who remember reading the book as children fell in love with it. Without the stereotyped illustrations and the name, it probably would be just a lovely story. But it’s hard to separate the story from the images, as I’ve had to explain to some of my readers over the years in reference to other children’s books with stereotypical images.
At auction once, I came across a 1949 version with a little boy that did not look African American. I also have a 1923 version of the book, a 1948 Viewmaster reel and a 1996 retelling by Julius Lester with wonderful illustrations by Jerry Pinkney.
In some cases, publishers have tried to ease up on the unrealistic drawings. Platt & Munk, which produced many of these books over the years, decided in 1972 to publish a different version, setting it in India with a mother who was 50 pounds lighter than the versions with black folks.
The earliest version of the “Little Brave Sambo” book and record that I found on the web was from the 1970s. One by Peter Pan Records was said to have been available in grocery stores. It was a story from the “deep dark jungles of Africa. Sambo is a red-haired white skinned chubby tot with blue eyes and Mumbo is a chic matron with her slim white figure wrapped in a leopard-skin sarong.”
Sounds like a young Tarzan. The book was reissued as a paperback in 2018 by Inspired Studios.
In another version of the “Brave” record with the same copyright date, Sambo was shown on the cover in light-brown skin tones. Inside, the kids on the paper label on the album itself were a white boy and girl. Another version was a 45 rpm with an Indian boy.
