Other than being called black there is nothing to consider racist in that book. On the contrary, he's clever and generous. How is that racist?
You're right. I'd forgotten the actual point of the book!
Other than being called black there is nothing to consider racist in that book.
And as to "black," it's not being used in a negative way at all. It's a descriptor, period. To the white kid reading it in the 1950s (e.g., me), little black Sambo is a little boy my age from the other side of the world who knows how to out-smart tigers. What's not to like?
And in fact, that was the book's point. It was a celebration of the brotherhood (and wit) of all men under God, written by Scotswoman Helen Bannerman and published in 1899.
Unless, like white Communists, you consider blacks sub-human clients instead of brothers in Christ. To Leftists, "Black" lives splatter, and that's the only thing useful about them. Pro-Communist, homosexual, sorta-black writer Langston Hughes started the denunciation of Little Black Sambo in 1932, describing it as a "pickaninny story book" hurtful to black children.
Even though it wasn't about them. And how would he know? He sure didn't have children.