Epaminondas is a children's story that was originally a folk tale that was orally transmitted in the Black community of the Southern States of the United States. A little boy named Epaminondas makes a series of amusing mistakes which are caused when he does the right thing at the wrong time, or they are caused when he takes metaphorical language literally. The humor derives from the problem of miscommunication between adults and children. The story was first published in 1911, and it quickly became popular. The 1911 book has been widely criticized for racial stereotyping, and later versions of it have attempted to rectify this. Source: Wikipedia (en)