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unusual facts about Helen Bannerman


The Tale of Ginger and Pickles

Potter developed the 1893 letter into The Tale of Peter Rabbit, and worked up a dummy book based on the small book format and style of Helen Bannerman's bestselling Little Black Sambo (1899) with its pages of simple texts opposite appropriate pictures.


Epaminondas and His Auntie

The eponymous character is a young black boy, and the stories are based on a folk tales from the Southern states of the U.S. Like Helen Bannerman's The Story of Little Black Sambo, which was originally written about a boy from Southern India but was later illustrated in many printings with stereotypes of African-Americans, the Epaminondas books have been criticised as having racist overtones and stereotypes.


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