By Pat Brisson
Jerome's mom is away at sea with the Navy, and he and his dog get through the long stretch by being brave, and by being scared, both.
Jerome's mom is in the Navy, and when her ship goes to sea she kisses him goodbye and tells him to be brave. So Jerome tries. He and his dog Duffy go to school, help Dad, walk to the store, and get through the days, and some of those days they manage it fine and some of them they don't. Jerome misses her badly. Sometimes he's afraid. Sometimes he acts out and gets in trouble. And then Duffy wins a ribbon at a dog show for bravest dog, even though everyone can see Duffy is scared of loud noises, and Jerome works out the thing the whole book has been circling: being brave doesn't mean you're not frightened. It means you keep going while you are.
It takes 'be brave', the thing a leaving parent so often says, and gently corrects it, so a child stops thinking bravery means never being scared. That's an enormous relief for a child who feels they're failing at holding it together. And it's one of the few on this shelf where the deployed parent is a mother, so a child whose mom is the one at sea finally gets to be the one in the story.