The Christmas Cookie Sprinkle Snitcher, 1969.

"I know now that Christmas
is not being greedy.
Christmas is spreading
sprinks to the needy!"

VIP (i.e. Virgil Franklin Partch) THE CHRISTMAS COOKIE SPRINKLE SNITCHER. Windmill Books/Simon and Schuster, New York, 1969.

Current Selling Prices
$300-$600 /£150-£300

CHILDREN'S LITERATURE
An unmistakably American book, fondly remembered by greying boomers and damned hard to find. There is even an appeal at the folksy Cheddar Bay site to get it republished. The big cheese at the site says: "A childhood classic, and a "MUST HAVE" Christmas read!Unfortunately, this children's book now brings staggering prices on the secondary market ... $250-$500 (I'm serious!). If you'd like to see this book re-published (thereby lowering this secondary market rip-off and making an old childhood favorite accessible to ALL), join me in writing to the 1969 original publisher of the book, Simon & Schuster, at the following address:

Mr. Rick Richter, President
Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing Co.
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020."

VALUE? Not a book that you would think was valuable but when it turns up on ebay bidding is intense and over at abebooks, an ambitious New York outfit, never knowingly oversold, want $1000 for it in a jacket. It can however be picked up for half that by canny buyers and half again by the eagle eyed book scout. The plot is mostly in the title but it concerns the children of a village dreaming of the Christmas cookies their mothers will bake when a rotten (but unambitious) "Snitcher" steals all the cookie sprinkles and everyone is looking for them to decorate Christmas cookies. A little boy (Nat) follows a sprinkle trail to find the sprinkles and teach the snitcher how to share. The snitcher blurts '"I didn't mean to spoil /no one's Christmas fun/ I'm ashamed", sobbed the Snitcher,/"ashamed what I done." '

Part of a valuable vein of children's Christmas literature - The Night Before Christmas, How the Grinch Stole Christmas! Madeline's Christmas (Bemelmans) Snow Before Christmas (Tasha Tudor) Babar And Father Christmas, Christmas at the Rose and Crown (Alison Uttley) not forgetting A Christmas Carol (with Stave 1, naturally.) Outlook? If Rick Richter listens to the pleas and reprints, it may dip in price for quite a while but the true first of this charming, uncomplicated bedtime story will surely always be wanted.