Not content to examine just Curious George and The Story of Babar, Kate and I round out our look at colonial children’s literature with a rather more serious examination of Helen Bannerman’s Little Black Sambo. That said, we are not content to consider a single version. That’s why our primary focus will be the Christopher Bing edition, with the original Helen Bannerman text:

With extensive consideration given to the Julius Lester / Jerry Pinkney book Sam and the Tigers:

And additional thoughts on The Story of Little Babaji with art by Fred Marcellino

Apologies for the sound quality, which went a little wacky this week.

Listen to the whole show here on Soundcloud or download it through iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, or your preferred method of podcast selection.

Show Notes:

– Later I would notice that Bing actually has placed a different name in the lower right-hand corner of each page. If anyone has any clue what that means, please let me know.

– Giving the people what they want. Which is to say, a tiger wearing a teeny tiny jacket:

– I spy with my little eye . . .

– Here is the New York Times review of the play Spinning Into Butter.

– And here’s Pinkey, working out the logistics of it:

– Just as a follow-up, I did read all three books to my children. And we had a very serious discussion about the problems with the Bing book and the history behind the story.

– Here’s Kate at the “If I Ran the Zoo” part of Universal Studios. Gahhh!!

– This is the Emily Nussbaum review that made me want to be a better reviewer.