Author: Tanita S. Davis

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April 21, 2026

3:42 pm

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NPM, Part and Poetry, Sleeper Stories, Small Fictions


This morning in the bathroom, I realized that both the showers are glassed in, thus constituting “windows,” thus technically coming under my wholly arbitrary ‘windows’ poetry rule… And now you’ll be tormented with my “shower thoughts” for the rest of the month, you’re welcome.

So, I don’t know if it’s a Spring thing or if there’s some other denom-specific significant thing I’m missing, but the Presbyterians are having baby baptisms frequently these days. And each time a baby objects to the whole… thing, the parents look like they want to sink through the floor. And I just want to call down from the choir loft and say, “HEY! Tell them they’re doing great!” Because honestly? If a random smiley man said some stuff to me I didn’t understand and then caressed my nearly bald head with water which is probably at best tepid? You’d better believe I’d let him know my thoughts on the matter. Loudly.

(TANGENT: does anyone remember the water gun christenings and Easter …Holy Water spritzing of 2020? The babies were perhaps even more offended then [or just confused]). Mind you, I’m wholly and deliberately missing the point, but dang it, babies should react negatively at the wildly strange interaction that is infant baptism. It’s an important survival reflex. The kids are all right.

Early Displays of Common Sense

Prudently,
baptisms
involve tears.

An infant’s
instinctive
rejection:

NO STRANGERS
WITH WATER!!!
(Good job, kid.)

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April 20, 2026

11:10 am

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Mental Health, Mi Familia Loca, NPM, Part and Poetry, Sleeper Stories

This week we have arrived at the portion of the NPM celebration wherein I acknowledge that I will be so glad when it’s May. Not because I can’t write a daily poem – I can, and probably should. Not because I can’t draw a daily doodle, either, though these images are only just now becoming the shorter, quick-sketch thing they were meant to be from the beginning, with fewer attempts at a photo-realistic literal and more impressionistic and observational within a metaphorical window… but because I always (always, always) set myself some project expectation that I absolutely struggle to complete. While the poems are moving from externally observant and becoming more internal, I’m finding that the form is inhibiting me – though this was a deliberate choice. Tricubes are meant for brevity, after all, and this is a process to teach myself to lean into that – but it’s just… hard. Normally I use poetry to process. Often there’s more I want to say, but it feels like dwelling – and I’m not going to change forms, though I feel the desire. Additionally, I DO have other things to do…

swinging bridge

between now
and back then,
a crevasse:

dear parents,
leave something:
some kindness –

memories
of soft hands
as a bridge.

Poetic addendum: Saw family this weekend. People of color who experienced physical ‘correction’ have a number of people telling them that culturally this is ‘necessary’ or ‘just how it is,’ or any number nonsensical things. I think there’s a part of us that goes cold and doesn’t recover, and when the punishing parent is approaching their four-score and whatever, and you still don’t feel safe to be familiar with them… what has the ‘culture’ done? What have we normalized? What is the profit…?

hourglass
avalanche
forces hands –

we can’t hold
time’s passage:
sand’s slipping.

leave something –
in loving
memory.

I guess a double tricube could be a new form?

{constant reader’s reads: great graphics}

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April 20, 2026

5:14 am

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General Coolness, Sleeper Stories, Under Radar Reading Recommendations, What We Do

Dear TBR:

Today’s effortless Three On A Theme: She’s Reading report is brought to you by Girls Doin’ Stuff, and Finding Your Place and… graphic novel greatness.

UPROOTED, by Ruth Chan: Don’t you just love this cover? And, can we normalize authors writing their name in whatever languages they speak? The use of Chinese characters here is just so cool.

This is a great book to check off a whole host of Read Harder challenges – an Asian protagonist, a book with a non U.S. setting, and a memoir. Ruth Chan both wrote and illustrated this outstanding book.

Thirteen-year-old Ruth is filled with fear when her parents announce that they’re moving back to Hong Hong from her hometown from Toronto. Though Ruth is a Canadian citizen, it IS going “back” to Hong Kong – for her parents. They’re moving to the island for her father’s job, but Hong Kong is where Ruth’s mother is FROM. She’s over the moon to be going back, and Dad is excited about the benefits and security of the new job, but… Ruth, an only child who has been welded at the hip to her two best friends for years, is feeling uprooted, bereft, and lonely.

It’s hard not being Chinese enough for your Chinese family. Her Cantonese, only reluctantly spoken sometimes to begin with, is definitely not good enough for her cousins. And yikes – she’s not in middle school in Hong Kong – nope, she’s in high school type classes, and she has chemistry already. Academic rigor and a language barrier aside, Ruth is missing her father, who is often away over night for work trips, and her mother, who, living so close to every cousin, sister, and best friend she grew up with is often away for afternoon coffees, morning gym trips, and weekend shopping. Ruth has to do SOMETHING to find her feet. She clings to the stories her father tells her when he’s home – and somehow, hearing about how the family clung together and made it through some of the roughest times in history give her fresh determination to make it through.

I’ve been meaning to read all of Shannon Hale’s REAL FRIENDS series, and I’ve just realized that it, too is considered memoir – so we’re two for two! Sixth grade Shannon is really spending a lot of time thinking about of what it means to be a friend, what it means for her to fit in with her friends, and …how she fits. Or, IF she fits. After standing up for herself against a classroom bully and spending a summer with her first job, Shannon is sure sixth grade is going to be a breeze. After all, she’s now friends with both the oldest and the most well-known sixth grade girl. She’s going to be a queen of the school, and she and her friends will finally be on top of things. Of course… it’s middle school, so doesn’t actually turn out that way. Not only does this book detail Shannon’s continuing drama with the close circle of friends she’s known throughout elementary school, the book also explores her confused expectations as to what girls are allowed to and expected to do – weighted heavily with her mother’s input as shaped by the Church of Latter-day Saints – and her concerns about her marriageability. I had a rueful chuckle about this. By the age of eleven-twelve, roughly Shannon’s age through sixth grade and the beginning of seventh, as this book covers, I was outspoken in my desire not to marry, and told anyone who would listen that I was just going to do my own thing, live in my own house, read as much as I wanted, and ignore people. (IRONIC how this is still a theme for my life.) However, the adults around me brushed off my desire for independence from the traditional role I saw fulfilled around me, and rather than asking me why, or responding to my insistent disagreement with curiosity, they constantly told me, “Yes, you will” or, “You’ll change your mind.” Shannon timidly wonders if she’s ever going to be compatible with a man if none of the boys in her school like her… and she doesn’t know how to take being left behind when the girls around her pair off. She doesn’t think that’s what she wants… but, maybe she doesn’t know the right thing to want… That difficulty with deciding on her own opinion plagues Shannon as she tries vainly to keep up with the latest group, the latest movie, the latest TV shows and characters, all in an effort to not be left behind, out of step, or forgotten. The book also explores intrusive thoughts and acute anxiety, normalizing an experience that Shannon struggles with throughout the book. While it doesn’t end on a cliffhanger, I do find myself wondering how she will negotiate trying to keep up and fit in as she gets older. The book does end on a hopeful note, as Shannon refuses to let her tight circle of friends determine which elective she’s going to take or change the direction of her interests.

This book is both written and illustrated by Sarah Sax.

Viv Sullivan used to be plain old Olivia Vivian Sullivan – an unknown nerd intensely into her fandoms and her two best friends. She also used to hate picture day, because there were umpteen Olivias in her school, and nothing making her stand out from the rest. Forgettable in a way that makes her feel invisible, even changing her hair style for picture day is a battle she can’t win, as her mother insists on helping her with a “classic” french braid and making her a hand-knitted cardigan to war. When she sees a fellow student interviewing students about their cool outfit choices for her vlog, Viv is done with being overlooked. Her favorite vlogger talks about living their truth a lot, and so Viv decides that there has to be a truth better than the one everyone thinks they know about her. In the bathroom she cuts off her French braid, and her messy, choppy hair gets attention from everyone – including her mother, who is called to the school to pick her up. A stylist straightens the jagged edges a bit, but to Viv’s mother, the damage is done. For better or for worse, Viv’s out-there action has drawn attention. She’s now what she didn’t know she wanted to be – an influencer. Now all Viv wants to do is to KEEP that attention. She pushes for bigger and bigger actions from herself, and from her two best friends who… didn’t actually sign up for Viv’s style of truth living. When it all crashes – as it inevitably has to – Viv must decide a.) if she really wants to still be friends with her best friends, and b.) if there’s a line between living your truth and living a version of yourself that’s fictional and pretending it’s your truth.

This book surprised me a little; I felt like Viv’s brashness was tempered by how truly good at fulfilling the dreams of others, but as her attention-seeking escalates, I wondered if it was being driven by something more than her personality difference with her mother. I guess not every action stems from some deep place of hurt or whatnot, but it was difficult to feel like I really understood what brought Viv to where she was – but this is from the perspective of a person who has only ever met one person with her same name and whose greatest wish was to find her name on a gas station keychain. This book is the first in a series.

Fresh onto the TBR:

  • Somebody’s Daughter, Ashley Ford
  • The Friend Zone Experiment, Zen Cho
  • The Tribulations of Ross Young, Supernat PA, A.J. Sherwood

Reality is overrated – but books are more than escape. Sometimes, they’re a platform to stand on, high enough to help you see another point of view. Stay reading!

        

Until the next book, 📖

Still A Constant Reader

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April 18, 2026

3:38 pm

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NPM, Part and Poetry

I really adore the alligator lizards who, for whatever reason, really find a lot of enjoyment in hanging out looking at our windows… looking in and wondering how we can possibly spend so much time indoors, no doubt.

Mr. Darcy Returns

Revisit!
A small friend
came over –

Introduced
last summer,
he’s polite

mindfully
visiting
the neighbors.


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April 17, 2026

10:58 am

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NPM, Part and Poetry

Inevitable, that we begin to circle the idea of windows as having two sides – the ones we look out of, and the ones behind which we cannot see. I like how eyes are both useful to see things, and useful to see things from only the point of view of the watcher – a view defined and interpreted myriad ways.

look

called “windows
of the soul,”
perspective

imagines
internal
narratives –

life observed,
translated,
redefined.

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April 16, 2026

1:08 pm

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NPM, Part and Poetry, Sleeper Stories


We’ve reached the halfway point of the month, and the location of a new window that really isn’t a window, exactly. I mean, it’s a screen. We were always going to have to get to the screens.

As a person who lived through the moral panic of video games as a child and then a teacher, and who is living with everyone else through the genuine cause-and-effect panic that is the morally bankrupt application of uncontrolled AI, this too-much-this-or-that in terms of digital interaction has solidified into the realization that forevermore, It’s Always Going to Be Something. People will always be upset about that which doesn’t fit within their parameters of societal or personal behavior or expectation. Even before screens, and reading on screens, my father sought to eradicate my predilection towards bookishness – without his control over the characters in the books nor over my thoughts about their actions or words or what I was learning from them, the contents of my mind must have felt chaotic, untrammeled, and wholly out of his reach… just like an individual’s thoughts ought to be.

May we guard the freedom to read forever.

avoid, escape, iterate

what mattered
was distance:
diminished

consciousness
receding
present, past –

the future
replete with
evasions.

{constant reader’s reads: cultural connections}

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April 16, 2026

3:12 am

1 Comment on {constant reader’s reads: cultural connections}

General Coolness, Small Fictions, Under Radar Reading Recommendations, What We Do

Dear TBR:

The Read Harder Challenge that Book Riot does every year hasn’t been something I’ve felt too much need to participate in, because it was originally started to expand people’s reading horizons, and… I like mine where they are? Meaning, I do make a point of trying to read a leeeetle nonfic, quite a few books by writers of other ethnicities and cultures, including queer and disabled cultures, and a couple of books in translation per year. That said, this book snuck up on me. It’s …brilliant. And? I wish that there had been – or were – Squee Camps for all kids in a racial minority with a 90’s hyphenated identity (I say this acknowledging that some people reject the labels of “Whatever-American” and just say Black or whatnot). I worked at a summer camp for six years, and served on its board for a few years, so I’m all about summer camp books, but this one is a step above! If I’d read it in junior high, I would have wanted to be Chinese-American, just to include myself in the sense of belonging that the characters in this book eventually find.

Phoenny Fang isn’t ready for her last summer at Chinese cultural camp. The Summertime Chinese Culture, Wellness, and Enrichment Experience – “SQUEE” to those in the know – ages out its campers in the eighth grade, and so, this summer is IT – it’s going to be the BEST summer of Phee’s life, and she’s here for the special camp things – the crafts, the games, and the bonding. With her squad of ten close friends, she expects to have the Best Time, Ever. Of course, being that this is real life, nothing goes as planned. For one thing, Phee and friends are NOT in the same dorm. She’s rooming with her best friend, fortunately, but some of the rest of the girls she’s been hallmates with since forever are on aren’t close by. Second, there are two new girls in her the group, and it’s clear that they’re hostile. They hate camp, they hate cultural Chinese stuff, and they seem to hate Phee especially. EVERYTHING Phee does is wrong – including Mandarin words in conversation. Asking questions about their Chinese names. Even smiling at one of the new counselors in training – who has also been smiling at Phee, which makes her feel…feelings. Phee is spiraling. Not being with her friends, not getting her first choice in activities, and dodging weird feelings and hostile new girls is making what should be fun hard. Squee has always been a haven that Phee as looked forward to every year. Why are these new girls even at SQUEE if they hate Chinese culture so much? Why is everything coming apart?

Phee’s plate seems overfull already when the SQUEE socials are attacked by anti-Asian trolls. Suddenly there are new safety rules, a craft making holders for security whistles, and a renewed sense that the real world is intruding. All Phee wanted was to have the best camp experience ever, to end her time as a SQUEE camper on a high note, just like the previous summer. But, when it becomes clear that she’s trying to hang on to something that will never happen again, that she’s trying to keep Squee exactly the same as it always was – even when the new girls’ experiences make it clear that it needs to evolve and expand – Phoenny realizes that in order to have a memorable final summer at SQUEE like she wants, things have got to change.

One of the things I love about this book is that it is honest and speaks genuinely about the experience of being a hyphenated American. Phoenny is unhappy about the changes that have come to the camp, but one of them is Hall Meetings, where the campers give Snaps, Squawks and S’Ups each evening to kind of discuss their day. Snaps are compliments – and everyone is required to share those, Squawks are complaints, and S’Ups are questions they have for their counselors. As it turns out, these Hall Meetings are where the author put some of the most baldly honest interactions between the characters. Some might argue that the conversations between the characters aren’t quite realistic, and that no tween is that honest or articulate, but I would argue that this being a work of fiction for middle grade/junior high kids, that honesty is important. Here the characters discuss their feelings about being at a cultural camp when they’re Chinese kids adopted by white parents, they discuss cultural heritage trips, which are a real life joint effort by the government of China and the U.S. to encourage Chinese-born Americans to return to visit, and they discuss the pitfalls of speaking Cantonese or Mandarin well, or not at all. They discuss feeling like a “bad Asian” because of the perception of their white peers — or of their Chinese relatives at times — that they don’t know enough, aren’t acting Chinese enough, and aren’t good enough as they are. Most hyphenated-Americans I know would cherish these types of conversations if they allowed themselves to be honest enough to have them. This book would work best, to my mind, for OLDER MG readers. I would LOVE to read this book with a book club or a social studies/literature class – the discussion prompts here are worth gold.

Acknowledging that there are hundreds of new books from various children’s lit publishers every year, I was nonetheless annoyed that I had missed this one. Where are its accolades and fans? This is just as important a book as many other books coming out in March 2024 which have gotten ALA props. Still, this won has a ⭐️ Kirkus, was featured on The TODAY SHOW: Read with Jenna Jr. 2024 Summer Reading List, is a 2025 Charlotte Huck Honor Book for Outstanding Fiction for Children, a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection, and was honored as a Horn Book 2024 Summer Reading: Middle School selection. So, okay. I am now officially less annoyed. Respect to Andrea Wang, and here’s to more excellent books like this one.

Fresh onto the TBR:

  • Somebody’s Daughter, Ashley Ford
  • The Friend Zone Experiment, Zen Cho
  • The Tribulations of Ross Young, Supernat PA, A.J. Sherwood

We are more than our outsides, more than looks that tags us with a label and put us in a box. Here’s to books to help us remember we all have worthy insides. Stay reading!

        

Until the next book, 📖

Still A Constant Reader

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April 14, 2026

1:10 pm

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NPM, Part and Poetry, Sleeper Stories

Heard the factoid this morning that Queen Elizabeth I’s courtiers blackened their teeth with soot to mimic her own genuinely decaying teeth, as in 1533 their monarch’s unrestrained love of sugar had left its mark and dentistry was not yet really A Thing. The podcast compared this to the myriad women who have gone under the knife to change their appearance and appeal to the putative head of this government in the year of our Lord twenty twenty-six. …And, I was thinking how we’re all grasping so frantically, even since primary school, for somewhere to belong, in the most galling fashion at times (see: Junior High). …and, how standing out and solitariness is not how most of us are naturally inclined, and how much effort it must take to stay true to oneself in that environment, and not even change your makeup routine to resemble the herd… And, how in two years or six months or less, the herd is going to look wholly different and even more ridiculous than it does now, and for those whose surgeries can’t be undone, then what? For whom are we changing our very bodies and selling our souls, with no reciprocity?

Collectively, We The People need Dr. Rudine’s windows, mirrors, and sliding glass doors… and for heaven’s sake to maybe have a sit and a quiet think… Because beyond all of the other *waves hands* …murderous, callous, unethical, illegal, ungodly -ists and -isms, none of that “go along to get along” stuff is ever sustainable. Weren’t we all supposed to learn that in junior high?

transcendent

confidence
shouldn’t lie
in “prettiest.”

upending
privilege,
the wisest

transcend it.
Indifferent
assurance.

Hummingbirds (which I cannot draw) are the ultimate in assured indifference. Beautiful, but may or may not come to the feeder. Exquisite, but may merely give you a quick side-eye as they pass. Stunning, and could not care less what you’re all about. #goals.