The Story of the Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman told a story of this little black boy who gotten all of his nice clothes taken by some tigers he met in the woods, however he was able to get them back after the tigers had an argument over which one of them was the grandest. Overall, I felt like the story itself had no sort of significance in terms of racism or race relations. However, I do think that the illustrations of the characters are rather too similar to the white people in black face that played in minstrel shows. The Little Brown and Little Black Sambo article does try to defend Bannerman, stating that the characters can be taken in differently by whoever read the story, but I don’t entirely agree with that. Little Black Sambo is claimed to be an South Asian Indian story, however I didn’t see anything that resembled the way Indian people look to my knowledge at all. As far as the illustrations, if the story were indeed about Indians I feel as if the people who drew these pictures didn’t have to make the Sambo family as dark as they did. I have never saw any one person whether they are Indian, African or African American who looks a monstrous as the characters in this book; but I do know that black people were looked upon as these ugly less attractive figures that are demonstrated in this text during the times of slaver. Also the fact that Little Sambo and his family has bright pink lips also leads me to believe that this text was solely meant to portray the way whites saw blacks during this time period.
Author Archives: Natasia C.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
As a child I don’t really remember hearing much about Alice and Wonderland, so reading it now as an adult was an extremely interesting task. While reading the story, I noticed that everything happening to Alice happened because she was curious. The whole reason why she ended up falling down the tunnel into wonderland was because she wanted to see more of the white rabbit. Even though she was a very young child, she was smart enough to recognize that seeing a rabbit with a coat and a stopwatch was something that was out of the norm. So, since she knew this she wanted to further explore this peculiar creature. Furthermore, in my opinion I also feel that Alice’s curiosity sparked everything that happened to her after she fell down the tunnel to wonderland. Since she wanted to know what was behind the small door, she stuck her head through it and found out that it was a beautiful garden. After this, she drunk a potion with a label on the front of the bottle that said “Drink Me”, not knowing what was going to happen to her after she drank it. However, her curiosity caused her to drink this mysterious liquid in a bottle, which started so much more chaos than she originally began with. Ultimately, toward the end of the first half of the book Alice began to wonder how to get anywhere away from all of the weird things that were happening to her in wonderland. So, I think after a while Alice began to appreciate the life she considered to be boring in the beginning of the story and she wanted nothing more than to return back home; however this furthered her curiosity even more because she started to wonder what she needed to do to get back home.
The Truant Boy: A Moral Behind Every Children’s Story
In The Truant by Abbott, it tells a story about a boy named Henry who skipped school when he found a boat as he traveled there. Not only did he discover the boat, but he decided that he should sit in it a little while before he continued his journey on to school. However, after paddling deeper into the stream he struggled to get back ashore and by the time he did reach dry land he was too tired to even go to school. The next day when he arrived for school, he had to make up a lie to avoid getting detention and he got away without any repercussions. So, once he realized that he could get away with skipping school, he began to do it more often; but each time he lied to his teacher, he would develop a guilty conscience.
In my opinion, I feel that this story follows the guideline of most children’s literature. Almost every piece of literature where children are audience, there is some type of lesson that the author tries to project through their writing. The moral of this short story tells young readers that it is never good to lie under any circumstances. In the story, not only did Henry lie but he also developed a guilty conscience because he knew that skipping school was wrong, but he also knew that telling a story to avoid getting in trouble was even worse. I’m not completely sure if Abbott intended to also show that one bad thing can lead to a world of other negative things, however that’s what I got out of the reading and I think that is also a good hidden message for children to know. A lot of literature written for children prepares them for certain essential aspects of the real world such as never to lie, cheat or steal.
Kiddie Lit:The Cultural Construction of Children’s Literature and the Huggies Commercial
In chapter one of Kiddie Lit :The Cultural Construction of Children’s Literature by Beverly Lyon Clark, the issue of the appreciation of children and children’s literature came about. Clark discusses how children are underappreciated in society, but yet many large corporations use them primarily to make a profit. Prior to reading the preface and first chapter of the book, I had never really paid any attention to the negative connotation that is attached with being a child. Many adults dislike being referred to as a child or childish ; there is something about American society tells us that in order to be important you have to be a mature adult.
In the Huggies Pull- Ups commercial, the slogan is “I’m A Big Kid now” and in my opinion this is a direct implication that because the babies now wear Pull-Ups instead of diapers they are more important and more respected by their parents. The main person in the commercial is an older kid around the age of twelve and he is the tour guide at the “Big Kid Academy”. He is projected to be very smart while he is teaching the babies and their parents about the diapers, while the younger children are projected to be incapable of speaking or understanding what he is talking about. At the end of the commercial the older child says “if you want to be a big kid like me, grab some Pull-Ups and enroll in the Big Kid Academy today”. I think the Huggies commercial is a direct example of how children are undervalued, but yet used by society for their gains. Viewing this commercial helped me understand exactly what Clark meant in that section of the chapter.