Tanagers are small migratory birds that live primarily in Central and South America. In Smack Dab in the Middle of Maybe, they represent a world that is always just out of reach. When Cricket’s mother was a child, she saw the Bird Room and thought she saw one of the painted tanagers flutter its wings. The tanager cameo became her obsession because she was never able to solve Bob’s puzzle. She left Cricket several times to search for the Bird Room, which she felt was a sign that “the world didn’t have to be plain and boring. It could be bright and bold and exciting” (42-43).

For Cricket, the tanagers are tantalizing clues leading her to the solution to Bob’s puzzle. She is not even sure if the Bird Room is real, but if it is, she hopes it will be the key to keeping her mother from running away again. At the end of the book, when she realizes that her mother is leaving her again anyway, she sees one last tanager in the shadow from her grandmother’s headstone. Once again, the tanager represents the life she wanted to have with her mother. The symbol of the tanager is bittersweet; although Cricket does solve the mystery, she cannot change her mother’s mind or find her way to the life with

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