I’m an elementary school librarian and purchased a cool book from www.compasspointbooks.com as part of their Games Around the World Series. It’s called “Jacks” by Elizabeth Dana Jaffe. I purchased several sets of plastic jacks from the local Target store. Many of my students are immigrants who have never seen the game before and were mesmerized.
The book gives a very short history of jacks, a glossary, and shows how to play a jacks game from South Korea “Kong-Keui” and Haiti “Osselets” and of course the American “Jumpin’ Jacks – onsies, twosies…”
An earlier message asked about 2 jacks that were on top of each other. Someone said it was “kissies”. Actually, it’s “haystacks”. “Kissies” is when both jacks were on the ground but one leg of the jack was touching the other.