“Chooch Helped,” written by Andrea Rogers and illustrated by Rebecca Lee Kunz, won the 2025 Randolph Caldecott Medal for Distinguished Illustrative Excellence. This is the second children’s picture book written by Rogers and the first illustrated by Kunz. (Special to the Democrat-Gazette)
When Andrea Rogers first received advanced copies of her book, “Chooch Helped,” she immediately texted her brother a photo of the cover.
“Well I tried, but mom wouldn’t let me!” he responded. Chooch is short for “atsutsa” or boy in Cherokee, and an affectionate nickname for the main character in “Chooch Helped,” which recently won the Caldecott Medal.
The eldest of three siblings, Rogers says there’s more than a little of her in the big sisters learning to let “Chooch” help in the family’s activities, like painting a mural or making a pinch pot.
“When you’re the oldest, they are like your son,” said Rogers, who has a little sister and brother. A citizen of the Cherokee Nation, she says the story of “Chooch Helped” reflects her own family and the passing on of traditions like making dumplings and “gigging for crawdads” as she grew up around Tulsa.
It’s a universal story, she says. As with life and stories, the siblings and parents alike learn to be patient and that “intentions matter.”
“The parents yell,” she says, “and then they choose to apologize.”
“I think we all want to do better and we’re all just trying to figure it out. So if we can try and do it as kindly as possible, that’d be great.”
The next generation learns by “helping” like the 2-year-old protagonist, Chooch.
“Whether it’s a cultural activity or even just like picking up their toys, if you don’t let them help, then they’re never gonna know why they would ever do it,” says the mother of three daughters.
Just eight years ago, Rogers was a teacher at an all-girls public school in Fort Worth. During the day she taught English and art. Her nights were spent writing, sometimes until 3 in the morning, working on stories and revising drafts.
“I was writing on the side, and I had little writing groups that I would join,” she says, but she didn’t see writing as just a hobby. Instead, she earned her MFA from the Institute for American Indian Arts, headquartered in Santa Fe, N.M. Throughout the program, she was mentored by other Indigenous artists and writers propelling her passion even more.
At the same time, her best friend, who desperately wanted to be a writer, was dying of breast cancer.
“She edited a collection of essays, but she never really got a book published. And that was one of her big goals,” Rogers says. “She had her doctorate in creative writing, but she spent the last three years of her life trying to survive and also be there for her children as much as possible.”
After losing a friend and turning 50, Rogers decided to pursue writing full time while earning her doctorate in English at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. When she took the leap, family members worried about money and the stress another degree program would bring.
“I could tell they thought I was a little crazy,” she says, “but I was like, ‘If I don’t do it now, then when?’ because you can’t buy time.”
Her first book, “Mary and the Trail of Tears: A Cherokee Removal Survival Story,” published in 2020, was included among the best books of 2020 by National Public Radio and American Indians in Children’s Literature. The story centers on the survival of 12-year-old Mary and her Cherokee family as they are forced from their homes during the Indian Removal Act of 1830. In the chapter book for juvenile readers, the family endures separation, internment, violence, disease and the harsh frontier.
Two years later, she released “Man Made Monsters,” a collection of horror stories written for young adults that follows the history of an extended Cherokee family who encounters monsters like wendigos from Native American stories and pop-culture monsters like werewolves, vampires and zombies against the backdrop of wars, American Imperialism, school shootings and other significant events.
“Man Made Monsters” landed on best-of-the-year lists in The Washington Post, Booklist Editors’ Choice and Publishers Weekly, among others. It also won the 2023 Walter Dean Myers Award for Outstanding Children’s Literature.
She met the illustrator of “Chooch Helped,” Rebecca Lee Kunz, while selling copies of “Mary and the Trail of Tears” and preorders of “Man Made Monsters” at a Cherokee Holiday celebration in Tahlequah, Okla. Rogers had a table set up at Spider Art Gallery, where Kunz had artwork and postcards for sale. Before she even met Kunz, Rogers had a stack of postcards illustrated by Kunz and was sending photos to her kids and her editor because she loved them so much.
As luck would have it, Kunz was at the celebration, which draws thousands of people to Tahlequah each September to celebrate the signing of the Cherokee Nation Constitution in 1839.
“Rebecca came up because she saw ‘Mary in the Trail of Tears’ on the table, and she said that several people had given copies of that book to her children,” Rogers remembered. Kunz is also a citizen of the Cherokee Nation who grew up in Oklahoma. She now lives in Santa Fe.
Kunz told Rogers she was curious about illustrating kids’ books, so Rogers suggested she consider “Chooch Helped.”
“She read the manuscript, and she loved it, and thought maybe she would be willing to try it,” Rogers says. “She knocked it out of the ballpark on her first go.” (The Caldecott Medal is presented to the artist of the most distinguished American picture book for children.)
Rogers says the illustrations in the book allow kids to “read” the story of “Chooch” even if they can’t read words just yet.
“What she does with light and dark shadow and the skies, it’s so expressive,” Rogers says.
“Of course if you’re gonna write picture books, it’s like, ‘Oh, I’d love to win a Caldecott one day!’ but I didn’t expect this to happen, especially so quickly,” she says.
“When We Gather (Ostadahlisiha): A Cherokee Tribal Feast” won the 2025 Oklahoma Book Award for children’s books. Illustrated by a Chickasaw artist, Madelyn Goodnight, the story centers on the tradition of family and community coming together to gather wild onions for dinner. Rogers was given the award May 16.
This summer, she plans to take a break from school to devote time to revisions. Afterward, she’s eyeing graduation as her work continues to win accolades. Keep up with her stories at andrealrogers.com.
Andrea Rogers’ “When We Gather (Ostadahlisiha): A Cherokee Tribal Feast” won the 2025 Oklahoma Book Award for children’s books in May. Rogers is a doctoral student in the English department at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. A member of the Cherokee Nation and a former schoolteacher, she started writing full time at 50 years old. (Special to the Democrat-Gazette)
Andrea Rogers recently won the Caldecott Medal for “Chooch Helped,” a children’s story she wrote about her brother and her Cherokee family. The Caldecott award is presented by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association for the most distinguished American picture book for children published in English during the previous year. (NWA Democrat-Gazette file photo/Andy Shupe)
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