With this touching tale of tradition and can-do spirit, Lyons interweaves an important element of the African American experience into a well-told story. When Momma helps Tiara’s friend Matti adjust hers, Tiara has an idea that just might remind Momma of the passion she had for hat-making and the joy her hats brought to so many. One Friday afternoon, in an art class, however, Tiara and the other children convince Momma to allow them to make hats. Tiara encourages her mother to begin making hats again, but Momma is not ready to talk about or work with hats.

Because she can no longer sell hats, Momma accepts a job as an art teacher at Tiara’s school, Height Elementary (a nod, perhaps, to activist Dorothy I. “We can’t eat dreams,” Momma tells Daddy and Tiara as they pack up the hat studio and her hopes. Tiara enjoys the laughter and warmth in her mother’s millinery shop, but when a store with lower-priced hats comes to town, Tiara must find a way to help her mother get her spark-and her customers-back. Never underestimate the feats an animal will brave in order to be reunited with their loved ones. Peaceful and pensive like Truman himself, this book charms there’s just something uplifting and wonderful about the whole package. Sarah and her mother have pale skin and straight, black hair other city dwellers are diverse.

And the ending, when Sarah arrives home in time to scoop him up before he slips under the front door, stuttering her amazement at his brave feats, is just right. Cummins’ gouache, brush marker, charcoal, colored pencil, and digital illustrations marvelously convey both the big picture of Truman’s navigation of the house and his tortoise’s-eye view of things. He’s so worried that he decides to go after her, a daunting feat for a tortoise the size of a small doughnut. In just the first few spreads, Reidy and Cummins manage to capture the close relationship between the girl and her pet, so it’s understandable that Truman should worry when he adds up the day’s mysterious clues: a big backpack, a large banana, a bow in Sarah’s hair, extra green beans in Truman’s dish, and, especially, Sarah boarding the No. Truman, like his girl, Sarah, is quiet, “peaceful and pensive,” unlike the busy, noisy city outside their building’s window. A tiny tortoise discovers just how brave he is when his girl unexpectedly takes a bus headed away from home.

Truman jean reidy