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

"Once upon a time there was a place called Sam-sam-sa-mara, where the animals and the people lived and worked together like they didn't know they weren't supposed to. There was a little boy in Sam-sam-sa-mara named Sam...."

So begins Julius Lester's delightful new telling of one of the most controversioal books in children's literature, Helen Bannerman's Little Black Sambo. Criticized in recent decades for racial stereotyping, many remember with fondness, however, the story of the boy and his encounters with tigers for its humor and charm as well as the triumphant victory of the small and weak boy over the large and powerful tigers.

Now Julius Lester and Jerry Pinkney follow their four prizewinning retellings of the Uncle Remus tales and the story of John Henry and come together again to re-create and revive one of the most maligned stories.

Julius Lester uses his inimitable black southern storytelling voice to bring new life and laughter to Sam, as he is called here. Jerry Pinkney's tigers prowl off the page and leap into the imagination. All of the Lester and Pinkney trademarks are present: wit, humor, and the perfect marriage of words and images.