The Story of Little Black Sambo

The jolly and exciting tale of the little boy who lost his red coat and his blue trousers and his purple shoes but who was saved from the tigers to eat 169 pancakes for his supper, has been universally loved by generations of children. First written in 1899, the story has become a childhood classic and the authorized American edition with the original drawings by the author has sold hundreds of thousands of copies.

Little Black Sambo is a book that speaks the common language of all nations, and has added more to the joy of little children than perhaps any other story. They love to hear it again and again; to read it to themselves; to act it out in their play.
A long afterword from the publisher spells out the books’ checkered past. But while the text remains nearly precisely the way Bannerman told it, Bing’s light-infused illustrations focus on the heroic boy’s courage and ingenuity as he outwits a series of tigers in the forests of India.