Source
University of Florida’s Baldwin Library of Historical Children’s Literature
Baldwin Call #23p1522
Description
Nina R. Jordan’s 1934 adaptation includes both Helen Bannerman’s original story as well as the non-Bannerman produced sequel, A New Story of Little Black Sambo. Jordan’s version features a distinctly Africanized Sambo and his family, with oversized lips, ink-black skin, and all clad with red earrings and bracelets. Mumbo is fashioned as a Mammy while Jumbo is dressed in an all-white, but distinctly Western attire of a white top tucked into white bottoms and styled with an ascot. Additionally, Jordan gives the family a white-and-black Schnauzer.
In A New Story of Little Black Sambo, Jordan recounts the tale of how Sambo, after being stripped of his Sunday best (his outfit in the original) for being naughty decides to rebel against Mumbo and runs away into the jungle for coconuts. He undergoes a few adventures with a tiger and elephant, before returning home and disciplined by Mumbo. At last, Sambo and his parents go to visit their cousin, the Bimbos, and Sambo is pleased that he can finally wear his cherished clothes again.
In both stories, Jordan illustrates the dark-skinned Sambo as completely naked–after the tigers take his clothes in the original–or nearly so in the sequel (he wears a grass skirt because Mumbo took away his Sunday wear). This, paired with the stereotypical illustration of his parents, as well as the bejewling of the family, presents a problematic version of Bannerman’s original as well as the unofficial sequel to Little Black Sambo.
Creator
No author attributed
Contributor(s)
Illustrated by Nina R. Jordan
Publisher
Whitman Publishing Co
Publication Date
1934
Format
42 pages; colored and black and white illustrations; 17 cm
Language
English