Book Description

The Story of Little Black Mingo and The Story of Little Black Sambo, by Helen Bannerman, tell of two children who overcome the odds. The Story of Little Black Mingo tells of a little orphaned black girl who is unfortunate enough to lived with a horrid abusive old woman named Black Noggy, who made her do impossible chores. In performing one of the chores, she was kidnapped by a mugger (crocodile), which brought her to a faraway island where her little eggs were. There Little Black Mingo met the Mongoose who drove the mugger mad in rage by eating its eggs. The Mugger tried a lot of ways to keep the mongoose away but he failed. It even chased them back to Little Black Mingo's home, but end up blown into bits with Black Noggy. The Story of Little Black Sambo was also written by Helen Bannerman, and first published by Grant Richards in October 1899 as one in a series of small-format books called The Dumpy Books for Children. Sambo is a South Indian boy who encounters four hungry tigers, and surrenders his colourful new clothes, shoes, and umbrella so they will not eat him. The tigers chase each other around a tree until they are reduced to a pool of melted butter; Sambo then recovers his clothes and his mother makes pancakes of the butter. The story was a children's favourite for half a century until the word sambo was deemed a racial slur in some countries, and the illustrations considered reminiscent of "darky iconography".