Sam and the Tigers: A New Telling of Little Black Sambo by Julius Lester

Lester, Julius. Sam and the Tigers:A New Telling of Little Black Sambo. Ill. By Jerry Pinkney. New York: Dial Books for Young Readers, 1996. ISBN: 0-8037-2028-9.

SUMMARY

Sam’s first day of school will soon be here, and his parents take him to buy school clothes. Sam is excited and wants to pick out his outfit for the first day of school. His mother and father agree to let him select his clothes, and when the first day of school arrives, he sets off wearing a rather unusual and unique outfit. Unfortunately, the trip to school becomes dangerous as Sam must find ways to outwit a group of hungry tigers in order to save his life.

ANALYSIS

Sam and the Tigers: A New Telling of Little Black Sambo is a fun tale spun from Helen Bannerman’s 1899 version, Little Black Sambo. Julius Lester’s words and Jerry Pinkney’s illustrations create a fun book with a clever protagonist who manages to triumph over greedy, cruel tigers.

The originating country of this tale is actually India where The Story of Little Babaji first introduces a young Indian boy who is threatened by tigers. Bannerman, a Scottish woman who lived in India, rewrote the tale by renaming the protagonist Little Black Sambo. Her drawings of Sambo hinted more towards an African child than an Indian child. Between the title of her revised rendition of the tale and her illustrations, Little Black Sambo became a controversial tale – the beauty of the story was lost among the ugliness of controversy and stereotyping.

Julius Lester and Jerry Pinkney both wanted a chance to right a wrong done to such a wonderful story where a Black child is the hero, and so wrote and illustrated Sam and the Tigers: A New Telling of Little Black Sambo to accomplish that goal. Lester uses a bit of creative freedom and completely steers his story away from Indian culture and submerges it into a land called Sam-sam-sa-mara that is mixed with animals and humans who mingle and work together, and where everyone is named Sam. The storyline is the same: Sam gets a new outfit that includes a red coat, purple pants, silver shoes, a yellow shirt, and a green umbrella. Then the tigers enter the story, take his clothes, run around a tree, turn into butter, and the butter is used for pancakes.

However, Lester and Pinkney’s goal for this book is not to simply retell a story, which many authors have done since the controversy. Instead, they recreate the young Black hero using positive and authentic cultural markers. Lester's characters use a soft, Southern United States dialect: Easy and smooth, the conversations flow naturally. For example, while they are shopping for Sam's new school clothes, Sam's mother tells him, " 'That will look very handsome on you.' Sam shook his head. 'Uh-uh. That ain't me,' he declared. 'Don't you be talking back to your mama like that,' Sam said. 'I'm a big boy now. I want to pick out my own clothes!' " The dialogue while the family shops is comfortable and shows a warm relationship between them. When Sam meets the tigers and gives them his clothes, each encounter ends with a tiger saying to Sam, " ' Ain't I fine?'" and Sam replying, " ' Indeed you are!"

Pinkney’s slightly surreal pencil and watercolor drawings provide additional cultural markers to detail the story. Sam and his mother and father – Sam and Sam – are a young Black family with cinnamon color skin and black hair. They are dressed in clothing that suggests an early 20^th century style. One illustration shows Sam (the boy) looking at the reader with a confident and knowing smile on his face while his parents decide if he can choose his own clothes for school. The animals in town are dressed as humans, which lends to creating the fanciful portion of the story. After all, do tigers actually wear a child's clothes and then turn into butter?

Sam and the Tigers: A New Telling of Little Black Sambo holds true to the original Indian tale of a young boy who wins at the end of the story. However, between Lester’s words and Pinkney’s illustrations, Sam becomes a young Black hero – with no controversy to taint a wonderful classic tale.

AWARDS/REVIEWS

ALA Notable Children’s Books, 1997

Booklist starred, June 1996

School Library Journal starred, August 1996

"Pinkney's lavish illustrations - a feast of figures, color, expressions and detail - pick up and run with the expansive mood of the text. A hip and hilarious retelling that marries the essence of the original with an innovative vision of its own." Publishers Weekly

"The controverial Little Black Sambo is back witha new look and a sassy voice..." Jan Lieberman, Children's Literature

CONNECTIONS

Uncle Remus: The Complete Tales by Julius Lester, illustrated by Jerry Pinkney

John Henry by Julius Lester, illustrated by Jerry Pinkney

Black Cowboy, Wild Horses, illustrated by Julius Lester and Jerrny Pinkney

The Story of Little Babaji by Helen Bannerman, illustrated by Fred Marcellino

In this version, the characters all have authentic Indian names and the illustrations depict an Indian culture.

PERSONAL RESPONSE

Little Black Sambo has always been one of my favorite stories. As a child, I loved the idea of the mean tigers turning into butter, and I could almost taste Sambo’s mother’s pancakes with the lovely melted butter on them. I was so dismayed to find out the story was banned – Sambo’s name had been twisted into a negative and derogatory word.  When I saw this version of my favorite story, I had to read it. I felt like a child again – I loved Sam’s choice of colors for his clothes – and that funny green umbrella! All the memories rekindled, and I fell in love again with the young boy who managed to escape, unharmed, the bullying tigers.

Sam and the Tigers. Cover illustration. Internet on-line.  September 15, 2013 from  http://www.flr.follett.com/cover?FLR=34042W1&SID=b280253d608c8322604104d465364637&type=cover .