Our first post about an eligible 2025 book is coming up on Thursday, but before we focus on the 2026 awards, let’s take a moment to appreciate Rebecca Lee Kunz, winner of the 2025 Caldecott Award for Chooch Helped, written by Andrea L. Rogers, published by Levine Querido. This was Rebecca Kunz’s children’s book debut(!!), and she’s just the second Native artist to win the gold in the Caldecott’s eighty-seven-year history (Michaela Goade was the first in 2021 for We Are Water Protectors by Carole Lindstrom). 

Here are links to the Horn Book’s coverage of the book and of Rebecca: 

• Review of Chooch Helped in the November/December 2024 issue of The Horn Book Magazine 

• Calling Caldecott’s coverage of the Award announcement 

• Rebecca’s 2025 Caldecott Medal Acceptance speech 

• Profile of Rebecca by poet Kyce Bello in the July/August 2025 issue of The Horn Book Magazine 

• Rebecca’s cover art for the July/August 2025 issue of The Horn Book Magazine 

• Horn Book editor in chief Elissa Gershowitz reports on her ALA annual experience 

From Rebecca’s blog: 

• Reaction to the news 

• 2025 ALA Newbery Caldecott Legacy Awards Banquet 

Two audio interviews: 

• Colby Sharp talks with Rebecca on his podcast, The Yarn 

• Chooch Helped on NPR 

In her profile of Rebecca, Kyce Bello says, "Her work is an act of deeply listening and seeing as much as it is about creating images. I have come to understand that it is her commitment to those practices that allows beauty to burst forth from her hands into the world." This world needs all the beauty it can get; we can't wait to see what the future holds for this debut illustrator. 

Congratulations once again, Rebecca, from Calling Caldecott!