Cracker Jack Prizes

The history, appeal and types of Cracker Jack prizes are examined from the early part of the twentieth century through the 1980s

Prize toys found in the Cracker Jack candy box from the late 19th century to the 1990s are shown and identified. Over 290 color photos depict the front and back of many prizes and aid in identifying individual toys and sets of prizes. The categories of prizes assist in easy cataloging.

Beginner projects: fairy garden, never too many, waterfall, vintage, bold and beautiful, Paris, southwest, trinkets, faces, rocker chic, outrageous, flower power, pennies from heaven, Intermediate projects: mementos, eclectic, springtime, fiesta, grammy's baubles, olde world, divine, sunset, whirlpool, talisman, droplets, waves, flight of fancy, heart to heart, yee haw, forever yours, true love, city nights, woodland, northern lights, talking leaves, orient express.

"Dean Young challenges the reader to hang on as he jigs from one poetic style to another and sets a wondrous course across a Duchampian landscape."—Chicago Tribune "In Young's work, the big essential questions—mortality, identity, the meaning of life—aren't simply food for thought; they're grounds for entertainment."—The Sunday Star (Toronto) Dean Young escorts his transplanted heart into invigorating poetic territory that combines the joy of being alive with his signature mixture of surrealism, humor, and fast-cut imagery. A Pulitzer finalist known for his hard-won insights, NPR said it best when they observed that Young sees "even in the smallest things the heights of what we can be." From "Harvest": Bring me the high heart of a trapezist. If not, bring me the heart of a drunk monk so I may illuminate an ancient text in a language I can't understand. The brain too is blood, blood racing 100 miles an hour on training wheels so let me splash through a red puddle, let me kiss the face of a red puddle, let me write my crazed, extreme demands on the frost-cracked window of god's split chest… Dean Young is the author of twelve books of poetry, including finalists for the Pulitzer Prize and Griffin Award. He teaches at the University of Texas and lives in Austin.

Featuring over 1000 colour photographs, this expansive guide to Cracker Jack covers all manner of company collectibles from advertising copy, books, catalogues, and crates to packages, premiums, photographs, and sales stimulators. The items detailed in this thorough work span the twentieth century from c. 1910 up through 1998. Values for the items shown are provided. Only the toys retrieved directly from Cracker Jack boxes are excluded here, covered by the author in a separate volume. As if this were not enough, other product lines produced by F W Rueckheim and The Cracker Jack Company are also displayed and discussed, along with the candy-coated popcorn and peanut confections created by early competitors. Everyone who has ever opened a box of Cracker Jack will find something of interest inside this Cracker Jack of a book!

This is a book about one of the great untold stories of modern cultural life: the remarkable ascendancy of prizes in literature and the arts. Such prizes and the competitions they crown are almost as old as the arts themselves, but their number and power--and their consequences for society and culture at large--have expanded to an unprecedented degree in our day. In a wide-ranging overview of this phenomenon, James F. English documents the dramatic rise of the awards industry and its complex role within what he describes as an economy of cultural prestige. Observing that cultural prizes in their modern form originate at the turn of the twentieth century with the institutional convergence of art and competitive spectator sports, English argues that they have in recent decades undergone an important shift--a more genuine and far-reaching globalization than what has occurred in the economy of material goods. Focusing on the cultural prize in its contemporary form, his book addresses itself broadly to the economic dimensions of culture, to the rules or logic of exchange in the market for what has come to be called "cultural capital." In the wild proliferation of prizes, English finds a key to transformations in the cultural field as a whole. And in the specific workings of prizes, their elaborate mechanics of nomination and election, presentation and acceptance, sponsorship, publicity, and scandal, he uncovers evidence of the new arrangements and relationships that have refigured that field.

Nearly 200 color group photos show many of the toys sealed inside Cracker Jack caramel popcorn boxes. Since 1912, more than 16 billion toys have been distributed. Also included are a history of the Reuckheim company that produced Cracker Jack and a discussion of the many changing trends in Cracker Jack toy history. Collect them yourself.

The Caldecott Honor winner and New York Times bestselling author of Bats at the Beach “pays homage to the pleasures to be found within libraries and books” (School Library Journal). Another inky evening’s here—the air is cool and calm and clear. Can it be true? Oh, can it be? Yes!—Bat Night at the library! Join the free-for-all fun at the public library with these book-loving bats! Shape shadows on walls, frolic in the water fountain, and roam the book-filled halls until it’s time for everyone, young and old, to settle down into the enchantment of story time. Brian Lies’s joyful critters and their nocturnal celebration cast library visits in a new light. Even the youngest of readers will want to join the batty book-fest! “As with its predecessor, this book’s richly detailed chiaroscuro paintings find considerable humor at the intersection where bat and human behavior meet. But the author/artist outdoes himself: the library-after-dark setting works a magic all its own, taking Lies and his audience to a an intensely personal place.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review) “The rhymed narrative serves primarily as the vehicle for the appealing acrylic illustrations that teem with bats so charming they will even win over chiroptophobes.”—Booklist “There is enough merriness here to keep the story bubbling . . . Pictures light-handedly capture the Cheshire Bat, Winnie the Bat and Little Red Riding Bat.”—Kirkus Reviews

Exploring the most fascinating and significant scientific missteps, the author presents seven cautionary lessons to separate good science from bad.