Chooch Helped
Review posted February 11, 2025.
Levine Querido, 2024. 48 pages.
Review written February 5, 2025, from a library book.
Starred Review
2025 Randolph Caldecott Medal Winner
Chooch Helped wasn't on my radar except to order library copies - until it won the Caldecott Medal. The Caldecott Medal is given to the artist for the illustrations, but it's an award for the picture book, so the story is always wonderful, too. It's not hard to see why this book was chosen this year.
The story is about a big sister and her baby brother. Here's how it begins:
This is the baby.
We call him Chooch.The word for boy or son in Cherokee is atsutsa (ah-choo-ja)
However, the plot thickens on the next page, when we read:
Chooch isn't really a baby, anymore.
We just celebrated his second birthday.Still, whenever Chooch makes a mess, everyone says,
"He's just usdi (oos-dee). Let him help."It seems to me, Usdi Chooch
just gets away with everything.
From there, each spread shows Chooch "helping" another member of the family. Each family member's name is given in Cherokee, and most of the time, we can see that Chooch's help is distinctly unhelpful. At the back of the book, the author tells how the different tasks they are doing are part of Cherokee culture.
Finally, when Chooch messes up the clay pot Sissy is making, she yells at him. So he cries, and her parents yell at her, "Shouting is no help!"
But when Sissy goes to her room and cries, Chooch helps her feel better. He really does help! And the parents apologize before the end, too. And there are lessons about how when she was usdi, her help was a lot like Chooch's. And it all ends with Sissy helping Chooch to make his own pinch pot.
The two spreads of back matter (not too common in a picture book) reveal the Cherokee traditions woven throughout the story and art of this beautiful book, as well as instructions for making a pinch pot, and more on the Cherokee words used.
So this book ends up being a beautiful tribute to Cherokee culture - but also a classic story of a "helpful" younger sibling that any big sibling in the world will be able to relate to. Truly a distinguished picture book. (And wow! I see from the back flap that this is the illustrator's debut picture book. You go! Awesome!)