Smack Dab in the Middle of Maybe is a middle grade novel by American author Jo Watson Hackl. Originally published in 2018, the book is Hackl’s writing debut. Although the novel is a work of fiction, it is partly based on Hackl’s own experiences growing up near Electric Mills, a ghost town in Mississippi. The real life of artist Walter Inglis Anderson (1903-1965) also inspired the character of Bob. Smack Dab in the Middle of Maybe tells the story of Cricket, a 12-year-old girl growing up in rural Mississippi. After the deaths of her grandmother and father, and the disappearance of her mother, Cricket is unsure about her future. Using her outdoor survival skills, she attempts to solve a decades-old mystery in the hopes of bringing her mother back into her life permanently. Smack Dab in the Middle of Maybe won the 2019 Southern Book Award in the Children’s Category and the 2020 Mississippi Library Association Children’s Author Award.

This guide uses the 2018 Random House Children’s Books e-book edition of the text.

Content Warning: This book and this guide include discussions of mental illness and grief after the loss of family members.

Plot Summary

Cricket, real name Ariana Overland, is a 12-year-old girl living in Deerfield, Mississippi. She is staying with her Aunt Belinda because her mother has disappeared and her father has recently died. Aunt Belinda, her children, and Cricket are in a grocery store when Cricket finds a live cricket caught in a spider-web. She rescues the insect. While she is busy with the cricket, Aunt Belinda and Cricket’s cousins leave without her. Cricket finds her aunt’s grocery list on the floor. It informs her that her aunt was planning to force her to live with a distant relative far away. Wanting to be nearby when her mother returns, Cricket takes some food and supplies from the grocery store and walks into the woods with the cricket. She names the cricket Charlene.

Cricket’s mother designed an elaborate headstone for her own mother’s grave, and it is being delivered in 11 days. Mama promised to be there for its installation. Cricket goes to a treehouse she built with her parents. It is located in Electric City, a ghost town that was once thriving but is now deserted. Cricket’s plan is to wait in the woods for Mama’s return while simultaneously solving the mystery of the “Bird Room.” When Mama was seven, she visited a house with a secret room that she saw through a keyhole. The room was full of paintings of the natural world so vivid that they seemed to be alive. The painter gave her a small cameo painting of a tanager, a type of colorful bird, and told her that if she used it to solve his puzzle, she would find a buried treasure. Mama gave the cameo to Cricket. She never solved the puzzle herself, but she remained obsessed with the Bird Room. Cricket believes that if she can solve the mystery, Mama will stay with her.

Unsure of how to start solving the puzzle, Cricket focuses on surviving in the woods with the help of a notebook her father left in the treehouse before he died. When her cousins broke the cameo painting of the tanager, they found an old coin from the ghost town. While exploring the town, Cricket finds more clues, including a carving of a tanager on a tree. Unfortunately, some raccoons steal much of her remaining food, making it harder for her to survive alone. She finds a rock in the cemetery that includes another clue: “Look like a rabbit. Go where the shimmering stops” (85). Again, the clue stumps her. She forages for more food before she finds a pathway lined by shimmering quartz. She digs (like a rabbit might dig a burrow) and finds a wooden box.

The coin from the cameo fits onto the top of the box, which opens to reveal a note that reads, “Some walls aren’t for everyone” (95). Cricket survives a brutal ice storm and thinks about her mother, who has abandoned her several times. Mama lives with an unspecified mental illness that can make her become emotionally volatile, obsessive, and distant. Cricket manages to make a trap and catch a fish, which she cooks. While out looking for clues, she gets bitten by a venomous snake. She runs through the ghost town to find help. She meets an old woman named Miss Vidalia (or Miss V.) and her large dog, Percy. Miss V. extracts the venom from the snake bite using a madstone, a stone found in the stomach of a deer. Cricket falls asleep for a day and a half.

Cricket thinks about her last Christmas with her parents. Mama’s behavior was erratic. Cricket asked her mother why she could not just be normal, but then she regretted her words. Mama disappeared; less than a month later, Cricket’s dad died suddenly. Mama returned briefly for the funeral, but then disappeared again without speaking to Cricket. When Cricket wakes after recovering from the snake bite, she snoops around Miss V.’s house. She finds dowsing rods with a tanager carved on them. Miss V. learns that Cricket is a runaway, but Cricket persuades her to let her stay for a few more days. She sneaks upstairs and finds a false wall. On the other side is a small room painted on all sides with images of the natural world: Mama’s Bird Room. She also finds a note from the artist that tells her to “start with the treasure in this house” (145) to solve the puzzle.

Miss V. finds out that Cricket visited the Bird Room and is angry. Cricket tells her everything and persuades her to help look for the buried treasure. In turn, Miss V. explains that the room’s painter, Bob, was her close friend, but he disappeared one night and has long since died. Cricket realizes that the “treasure” is a copy of Treasure Island with some words underlined: “steps outside.” The book also says to visit the Bird Room at the “magic hour” just before sunset. Through a newspaper article, Cricket learns that she has won an art competition for a camp at a prestigious high school. In the evening, she and Miss V. visit the room at the appointed time. They find a tanager that matches the one on the dowsing rods and a crude map. The two of them return to the tree with the tanager carving that Cricket found. They follow the map and use the dowsing rods and find the right spot to dig, unearthing a metal box.

Bob’s treasure is not money—it is a collection of his paintings. The next morning, Mama returns, and Cricket meets her at the cemetery. Things do not go according to plan. Mama is pregnant and has arrived with Brian, her new boyfriend. She is living in Memphis and wants Cricket to live there with her. She is not interested in seeing the Bird Room after all. Cricket refuses to join her, instead returning to Aunt Belinda’s house. She decides to split her time between Miss V. and Aunt Belinda, and she also prepares to attend the art camp. Although she is angry with her mother, she also loves her and feels ready for whatever the future holds.