The American Library Association named its 2025 Youth Media Award recipients.
- The winner of the Caldecott Medal this year, honoring the artist of the most distinguished American picture book, was “Chooch Helped!” (2024, illustrated by Rebecca Lee Kunz, written by Andrea L. Rogers, Arthur A. Levine/Levine Querido).
In this book, we’re introduced to “the baby,” Chooch, with a close-up illustration in warm-toned watercolors of 2-year-old Chooch reaching toward his birthday cake. The narrator, who tells us the Cherokee words for boy and girl, introduces herself as Chooch’s older sister, “Sissy.” Sissy lets us know what’s troubling her: “… whenever Chooch makes a mess, everyone says … ‘Let him help.’ It seems to me, Usdi Chooch just gets away with everything.”
The story follows each member of the Cherokee family as they paint a mural, sew moccasins, make dumplings and more, accompanied by the refrain, “Chooch helped.” Playful illustrations show Chooch being very unhelpful, culminating when Chooch tries to help Sissy make a clay pot, and she screams at him.
Sissy’s parents intervene and say, “Chooch learns by watching. You’re one of his most important teachers.”
“I am?” Sissy responds. Sissy then changes, teaching Chooch how to make a clay pot and helping him put it in the window to dry. Backmatter includes a glossary and instructions for making a pinch pot.
Four Caldecott Honor books were also named: “Home in a Lunchbox” (illustrated and written by Cherry Mo, Penguin Workshop), “My Daddy Is a Cowboy” (illustrated by C.G. Esperanza, written by Stephanie Seales, Abrams Books for Young Readers), “Noodles on a Bicycle” (illustrated by Gracey Zhang, written by Kyo Maclear, Random House Studio) and “Up, Up, Ever Up! Junko Tabei: A Life in the Mountains” (illustrated by Yuko Shimizu, written by Anita Yasuda, Clarion Books).
- The winner of the Sibert Informational Book Medal, which honors the author and illustrator of the most distinguished informational book published during the last year, was “Life After Whale: The Amazing Ecosystem of a Whale Fall,” (2024, written by Lynn Brunelle, illustrated by Jason Chin, Neal Porter Books).
“She drifts slowly,” we read as we follow the blue whale, watching her lunge toward a cloud of krill. The lyrical, conversational text is full of details as we learn about the whale’s life, from her size to how the layers of wax in her ears show her age, in “rings that measure a lifetime.” But this year, the whale’s heart is slowing down. And, “This year, this day, this moment, after ninety years of life, as all living things must do at some point, she dies.”
However, the end of the story of the whale’s life is the beginning of another story. The detailed watercolor illustrations show the whale’s body expanding with gasses and floating, as sea birds feed on it from above and sharks from below.
Text and illustration work in harmony as the story continues, the whale slowly sinking to the sea floor. We see and read about the many creatures who feed on her body, in different phases — zooming sharks, nestling octopi and then worms that burrow into the skeleton. Many scientific facts are made accessible to children, delivered in a conversational, poetic tone.
In the end, we follow the chemicals from the skeleton that rise back to the sunny surface and feed the algae and plankton, which feed the krill, which feed a hungry young blue whale and the calf growing inside her.
“And in a beautiful, circular way, the whales of the past, the present, and the future swim on,” the book ends. Several pages of backmatter give further information about whales and whale falls.
Four Sibert Honor Books were also named: “Call Me Roberto!: Roberto Clemente Goes to Bat for Latinos” (written by Nathalie Alonso, illustrated by Rudy Gutierrez, Calkins Creek), “The Enigma Girls: How Ten Teenagers Broke Ciphers, Kept Secrets, and Helped Win World War II” (written by Candace Fleming, Scholastic Focus), “The Girl Who Sang: A Holocaust Memoir of Hope and Survival” (written by Estelle Nadel and Sammy Savos with Bethany Strout, illustrated by Sammy Savos, Roaring Brook Press) and “Wings of an Eagle: The Gold Medal Dreams of Billy Mills” (written by Billy Mills and Donna Janell Bowman, illustrated by S. D. Nelson, Little, Brown and Company).
Alice B. McGinty (alicebmcginty.com) is the award-winning author of almost 50 books for children and runs a summer writing camp for teens, Words on Fire. She just celebrated the release of two books, ‘The Girl Who Named Pluto: The Story of Venetia Burney’ (Schwartz and Wade Books) and ‘Pancakes to Parathas: Breakfast Around the World’ (Little Bee Books).
