Artist Rebecca Lee Kunz’s three daughters—ages 11, 14, and 17—were making art on the family’s kitchen table when she received the call that her debut picture book, Chooch Helped (Levine Querido), had won the Caldecott Medal. “At first, I wasn’t sure what was going on—it was surreal,” she told PW. “I could hear a bunch of people in the background—they were joyful and were celebrating. The whole committee was there. They called me on FaceTime and my kids got to watch the whole thing. It was really special.”
Chooch Helped is about a Cherokee girl named Sissy who gets increasingly frustrated with her younger brother, Chooch. PW’s starred review called the book “tender” and “familial,” and said of Kunz illustrations: “Delicately hued, layered mixed-media images that utilize Cherokee iconography, meanwhile, reveal Chooch painting a line across the mural, tearing at the moccasin leather, and pouring flour onto the kitchen floor.”
Chooch Helped was the result of a serendipitous meeting between Kunz and author Andrea L. Rogers at the 2022 Cherokee National Holiday in Oklahoma, which commemorates the signing of the 1839 Cherokee Nation Constitution. “She was signing books, and we connected right away,” Kunz recalled. “She had my work at her table, and she was going to buy [some] at the same gallery where she was scheduled to do a reading. I didn’t know she had a manuscript at that moment.” When Nick Thomas, executive editor at Levine Querido, contacted Kunz with Rogers’s story, “I fell in love with it immediately,” Kunz said. “I loved Chooch right away.”
She immediately knew what Chooch would look like. “I started working on sketches and experimenting, and had to learn how to translate the painterly style that I had developed over years into a children’s book, which is a very different thing than creating a painting or a print.” She received boundless support from Thomas and Joy Chu, Levine Querido’s art director. “Nick encouraged me to be authentic and not hold back—the illustrations are rich with Cherokee symbolism and culture.”
Kunz’s style is most evident in the centerfold spread of “the crawdad gigging, where Chooch is holding up a crawdad,” she said. “It was the first image that was fully formed with my collage style and integrated different images and elements.” Several pages later, Chooch and his sister are sitting on her bed. “I felt like [that spread] was successful in what I was going for—the use of light and the light coming in through the window. That’s a style I’ve developed over many years in painting. I felt good about being able to translate that into this illustration style. It took some trial and error for sure.”
Kunz is currently working on illustrations for an as-yet-undisclosed picture book, as well as “a body of paintings that will be in an exhibition at a gallery called the El Zaguán,” she said. She also owns the Tree of Life Studio in Santa Fe, where she sells her art as prints and cards, as well as other merchandise. “I’m always working on new art for that, and a lot of printmaking. And if I’m not working, I’m thinking about my work.”
Kunz doesn’t know what the coming days and weeks will bring—“more interviews is my guess,” she said. She and her family have taken time to celebrate: they shared a special dinner at home on Sunday, and her daughters stayed home from school on Monday morning to hear the American Library Association’s annual Youth Media Awards announced live. “It’s humbling,” Kunz said. “I feel beyond grateful. It’s unreal, but I’m thrilled. But I’m a mom and I still will pick up my kids from school and be active in their life. All the normal things will still be happening. I plan on trying to get some sleep. That’s my hope.”
