‘Papilio’ and ‘Chooch Helped’ are children’s books brought to life by friendship

Summary

NPR's Book of the Day

Episode: ‘Papilio’ and ‘Chooch Helped’ are children’s books brought to life by friendship
Date: September 5, 2025
Host: Andrew Limbong

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Episode Overview

This episode of NPR's Book of the Day explores the collaborative creation of two standout children’s picture books: Papilio, a story of metamorphosis, friendship, and creative teamwork; and Chooch Helped, a Caldecott Medal-winner celebrating sibling bonds and Cherokee family traditions. Through interviews with authors and illustrators, listeners gain insight into the creative processes, challenges, and emotional resonances that bring these stories to life.

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Segment 1: The Making of Papilio (00:45–11:04)

Introduction and Book Concept (00:45–01:27)

• Papilio is the story of a caterpillar’s transformation into a butterfly, told in three parts (egg/caterpillar, chrysalis, butterfly), each crafted by one of three friends: Ben Clanton, Corey R. Tabor, and Andy Chow Musser.
• The story serves as both a narrative about change and a reflection of creative collaboration.

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The Collaborative Creative Process (02:27–04:32)

• The three authors discuss how their decade-long friendship naturally led to artistic teamwork:
  • “Andy and I were already making some books together and we had so much fun doing that that we went, what would happen if we added another friend into the mix?” – Ben Clanton (02:54)
  • Corey Tabor describes late-night inspiration: “I woke up in the middle of the night and I had this idea of the stages of a butterfly. And we each write and illustrate a different stage.” (03:20)
• The choice to focus on the black swallowtail butterfly for its unique and understated beauty is discussed:
  • “I want a fantastical looking butterfly, but I also want one that is maybe a little bit unexpected...what if we chose a butterfly that had almost no color at all?” – Andy Chow Musser (04:07)

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Defining Each Stage: Artistry and Storytelling (04:32–06:28)

• Ben Clanton describes embodying childlike wonder in the caterpillar phase:
  • “I was inspired by my youngest son and just this unstoppable wonder and curiosity he had.” (04:32)
• Corey R. Tabor tackles the challenging chrysalis portion, where physical inactivity led to creative external adventures for the character:
  • “When they go from caterpillar to chrysalis they kind of dissolve into goo...the challenge with that was the character can’t really do anything.” – Corey R. Tabor (05:09)
  • Collaborative creativity led to the idea of the chrysalis traveling with a bird’s help while the caterpillar remains oblivious.
• The story shifts from focusing on transformation to a nuanced exploration of growing up:
  • “Originally, our idea was just change and transformation...as we worked on it, it became more a story about growing up.” – Corey R. Tabor (06:05)

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Crafting Personality and Humor (06:28–07:45)

• Andy Chow Musser reveals the comic struggle of learning to fly:
  • “Flying is a lot harder than Pilio expected...Corey had a great idea. He’s like, what if Pilio curses by saying sluggety slime?” (06:28)
• Ben Clanton performs a catchy, improvised song from the book:
  • “‘Got a full belly. Time to turn to jelly.’ I imagine it’s like, you know, like a little kid at that point, kind of just making up as she goes.” – Ben Clanton (07:26)

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Visual Style and Artistic Choices (08:02–09:47)

• Each artist brought a distinct style reflecting the story’s stages:
  • “Soft pastel tones, a bit impressionistic...some areas feature a lot of collage.” – Andy Chow Musser (08:20)
  • “My section tends towards cartoony at moments. Cartooning is kind of my go to.” – Ben Clanton (08:20)
  • “Yeah, it’s color pencil and watercolor. I think I wanted it to have kind of like a loose, wild feel to it, to kind of match the adventure.” – Corey R. Tabor (08:32)
• The changing art styles mirror the protagonist’s transformation:
  • “One idea is that we would kind of retain our own illustration style and that the idea that Popilio is changing, and so each stage of life, she sees the world a little bit differently.” – Corey R. Tabor (08:47)

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Themes: Tenacity, Growth, and Friendship (09:47–11:04)

• Pilio’s journey underscores learning through failure and persistence:
  • “I think Popilio really learns that it’s okay to fail and that practice is really important. And that being tenacious and trying something over and over again pays off.” – Andy Chow Musser (09:32)
• The story champions collaboration—within the book and among the creators:
  • “That friendship, I think, reflects our own sort of friendship too in the making of the book.” – Ben Clanton (10:22)
  • “I hope it encourages [readers] to collaborate with the people around them instead of seeing other people or friends as competition.” – Andy Chow Musser (10:46)

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Segment 2: Behind the Scenes of Chooch Helped (11:42–18:31)

How Chance Sparked Award-winning Art (11:42–13:29)

• The creation of Chooch Helped began when author Andrea L. Rogers and illustrator Rebecca Koons met serendipitously at the Cherokee National Holiday:
  • “The Caldecott winning picture book Chooch Helped only exists because Andrea L. Rogers and Rebecca Koons happened to bump into each other at the Cherokee National Holiday.” – Andrew Limbong (11:42)
• Both collaborators express disbelief and pride in their unexpected but successful partnership:
  • “It is wild and incredibly unusual and atypical, and I am in awe.” – Rebecca Koons (13:23)
  • “Pretty much every couple of days I tell my husband, hey, you know what? A book I wrote won the Caldecott because I don’t know if I believe it yet.” – Andrea L. Rogers (13:29)

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Story and Family Dynamics in Chooch Helped (12:00–12:46)

• The book centers on the misadventures and love between siblings:
  • “This story is about two siblings sort of figuring out their relationship...there’s some yelling, but then there’s forgiveness and there’s understanding.” – Andrea L. Rogers (12:46)
• The narrative is autobiographical in spirit, rooted in Rogers' own experience as a sibling and parent.

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Artistic Approach and Cherokee Cultural Roots (14:38–16:05)

• Koons breaks down her layered, collage-hued style:
  • “A little bit of collaging, some painting, a lot of line work...sometimes the layers and textures are somewhat translucent. And then I collage in different elements.” – Rebecca Koons (14:38)
• Rogers highlights the importance of authentic cultural representation:
  • “There was stuff I didn't have to explain. Like if I mentioned what gigging was, she knew what gigging was, and she could show it.” – Andrea L. Rogers (14:19)

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Creating Scenes Unique to Place and Tradition (16:05–17:08)

• Koons describes infusing the book with Oklahoma’s visual warmth and everyday activities:
  • “When I think of Oklahoma...I think of that warm color palette, earth tones, warm colors. I wanted a lot of light and sun. And so those colors kind of came to me naturally when I thought of the characters in the story.” – Rebecca Koons (16:05)

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Universal Resonance and Emotional Impact (17:08–18:31)

• Rogers equates messy family traditions with invaluable cultural bonding:
  • “If they're not involved from the beginning in their own culture, then when they grow up, they're not going to be as invested in their own culture. And so there has to be patience and grace on the part of everyone in a family for the family to work together.” – Andrea L. Rogers (17:08)
• The book gently champions kindness and tenderness within families:
  • “This book speaks a lot to kindness and care...tenderness is still okay for boys and girls, and we can have disagreements and still love each other and care for each other.” – Rebecca Koons (18:10)

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• “I think we all agreed at the beginning that we like hapless heroes. That helped set the tone a bit.” – Ben Clanton, Papilio (07:45)
• “Just if something sounds fun, that's a good enough reason to try it.” – Corey R. Tabor, Papilio (03:06)
• “I hope it encourages them to collaborate with the people around them instead of seeing other people or friends as competition.” – Andy Chow Musser, Papilio (10:46)
• “If they're not involved from the beginning in their own culture, then when they grow up, they're not going to be as invested in their own culture.” – Andrea L. Rogers, Chooch Helped (17:08)
• “Kindness and care...we can have disagreements and still love each other and care for each other.” – Rebecca Koons, Chooch Helped (18:10)

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Episode Takeaways

• Collaboration in children’s publishing can yield uniquely poignant and playful work, as seen in the multi-voiced, multi-styled Papilio and the serendipitous pairing behind Chooch Helped.
• Transformation and growth—whether in nature, art, or relationships—require patience, trust, and sometimes messy trial and error.
• Cultural traditions and family bonds are strengthened when shared openly with younger generations, even when the process is imperfect.
• Both books emphasize joy, resilience, and connection: the heart of children’s literature at its best.

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For more on these stories and authors, listen to the full episode of NPR’s Book of the Day.

Transcript

[Andrew Limbong]

Hey, it's NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbong. It might not seem like it, but writing is a team sport. That's especially true if you're writing picture books. NPR producer Samantha Balaban puts together this great series called Picture this, where she gets the collaborators of a kid's book together to talk about the creative process. We've got a couple of those pieces for you today. In a bit, we'll hear about Chuch Helpt, which won the 2025 Caldecott Medal. But but first, Popilio is a book about a caterpillar who undergoes some changes. The book is written by three friends, Ben Clanton, Cory R. Tabor and Andy Chow Musser, who each took the lead on different parts of Popilio's transformation into a butterfly, and they talked about how they use their own different styles and techniques to make each phase feel different. After the break, NPR's Scott Simon sets up the plot a bit more, and then the three buddies take it from there.

[NPR Sponsor Announcer]

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[Narrator/Interviewer]

Enthusiastic and adventurous caterpillar.

[Ben Clanton]

Pilio can't wait to join the world. Today is the day she decides she.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Bursts out of her egg and she becomes a chrysalis.

[Corey R. Tabor]

Growing up sure is weird sometimes, thinks Papilio. But as every caterpillar knows, you can't become a butterfly without first becoming caterpillar soup. C' est la vie.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Her main goal in life is to metamorphize into a butterfly and learn to fly.

[Andy Chow Musser]

Wow, that flower looks yummy. I haven't eaten in ages. I suppose I have to fly to get up there. But where do I start? Maybe like this? Nope, definitely not like this.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Papilio is a children's story told in three parts about three stages of life, and it's written and illustrated by three friends.

[Ben Clanton]

Most of the time.

[Andy Chow Musser]

That's right, yeah.

[Corey R. Tabor]

Yeah, We've known each other for a decade now, maybe.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Plus, for our series, Picture this. Ben Clanton, Corey R. Taber and Andy Chow Musser talk about their cross pollination. I mean, collaboration.

[Ben Clanton]

Andy and I were already making some books together and we had so much fun doing that that we went, what would happen if we added another friend into the mix?

[Corey R. Tabor]

When they asked me, I was. I was surprised, but my answer was yes. Right away. It sounded like such a fun project. And I think. I think in this line of work, just if something sounds fun, that's a good enough reason to try it. And that's where it started.

[Andy Chow Musser]

Correct me if I'm wrong, Corey. We talked to Corey one day and he was like, I woke up in the middle of the night and I had this idea of the stages of a butterfly. And we each write and illustrate a different stage.

[Corey R. Tabor]

Yeah, we wanted to do the project because it would just be a fun thing to do between the three of us. But we thought that there needed to be some kind of a reason for three authors and illustrators to work together on a project. And the butterfly just seemed like a perfect way to kind of justify that and for each of us to show off our own voice and illustration style.

[Ben Clanton]

So her name's Pilio. She's a black swallowtail butterfly or Pilio polyxenus. Am I getting that right? I hope so. The choice of species to begin with, that was Andy, Ben and Corey were.

[Andy Chow Musser]

Super generous and let me have a lot of say in what butterfly that we went with, because I was illustrating the final chapter and I looked at a bunch of different butterflies and I thought, I want a fantastical looking butterfly, but I also want one that is maybe a little bit unexpected. And so I thought, what if we chose a butterfly that had almost no color at all?

[Ben Clanton]

So we start out with the caterpillar phase. I took on that section. This is Ben. There's four stages for a butterfly's life. We get a little bit of egg time in the caterpillar section. And it's really just about growing up in the caterpillar phase. I was inspired by my youngest son and just this unstoppable wonder and curiosity he had. And I put a lot of that into Popilio's character as she's just entering this world.

[Andy Chow Musser]

Corey very courageously said that he would do the chrysalis section, which was a huge relief to me because that one seemed like the toughest nut to crack.

[Corey R. Tabor]

Yeah, I read somewhere when we were researching butterflies that when they go from caterpillar to chrysalis. They kind of dissolve into goo. And then they just kind of hang out for a week or so and rebuild their body. And the challenge with that was the character can't really do anything. She's just stuck inside of her chrysalis the whole time. So I think it was Ben or Andy who had the idea that the chrysalis itself would be going on this wild adventure. While Popilio is completely oblivious inside, a bird has landed on her branch and is looking at her chrysalis. And then the bird grabs the chrysalis with her beak and flies off with it. And so then the bird fights with another bird over the chrysalis, and then the chrysalis goes flying through the air. So I kind of took that idea and just ran with it.

[Ben Clanton]

Something that I see within it is. There's a lot of uncertainty, but. But having to just kind of accept that, like, she is changing, but she can't impact the world around her. She just has to kind of trust in the process.

[Corey R. Tabor]

Yeah, I think that's probably something that's familiar to children, too. That idea that things are happening around you and you're growing, and some of the time you just have to just go with it and see what happens. Originally, our idea was just change and transformation, the whole metamorphosis. And as we worked on it, it became more a story about growing up and. And I think that kind of just happened naturally. The story changed as we worked on it.

[Andy Chow Musser]

In the butterfly section, this is Andy speaking. There's a part where Popilio is very disappointed. Popilio has to learn to fly. And flying is a lot harder than Pilio expected. And we needed an expression of that disappointment. And I couldn't think of one. And Corey had a great idea. He's like, what if Pilio curses by saying sluggety slime?

[Corey R. Tabor]

Was that my idea?

[Andy Chow Musser]

Yeah.

[Corey R. Tabor]

I don't know if I can take credit for that. We had a meeting where we were trying to come up with the songs, and we had lots of ideas, but I think the ones that we went with were Andy's.

[Andy Chow Musser]

Yeah, I think I started those off. I really like to make up silly songs. When we had the idea to write songs for Pilio, I was very excited and had a lot of ideas. We don't have a melody or anything for Pilio songs, do we? Yet.

[Corey R. Tabor]

Yeah, we never have.

[Ben Clanton]

I have a way that sounds in my head, but do you guys each have ways that sounds in your head?

[Andy Chow Musser]

I think this one's on Ben. Go for it. Do you need the book? We have it here. Okay.

[Ben Clanton]

When turning into a chrysalis, she goes, got a full belly. Time to turn to jelly. I imagine it's just like, you know, like a little kid at that point, kind of just making up as she goes, you know, time to unfurl, then give these wings a whirlwind.

[Andy Chow Musser]

Excellent. Bravo.

[Ben Clanton]

That's how it sounds in my head, at least. I think we all agreed at the beginning that we like hapless heroes. That helped set the tone a bit. And then Corey also had finished this piece of the chrysalis flying through the air. And that's where the palette, I think, kind of got established, where we're like, oh, yeah, that's nice.

[Andy Chow Musser]

I would say, color wise, soft pastel tones, a bit impressionistic. Some areas are painterly. Some areas feature a lot of collage. Some areas use line work.

[Ben Clanton]

My section tends towards cartoony at moments. Cartooning is kind of my go to Corey section.

[Andy Chow Musser]

Corey, what media do you use? I see. It looks to me like colored pencil or maybe crayon.

[Corey R. Tabor]

Yeah, it's color pencil and watercolor. I think I wanted it to have kind of like a loose, wild feel to it, to kind of match the adventure that the chrysalis goes on while Popilio's oblivious inside.

[Ben Clanton]

It has a very spring feel to me. Like, it feels like spring colors.

[Corey R. Tabor]

Oh, yeah. I did that on purpose. One idea is that we would kind of retain our own illustration style and that the idea that Popilio is changing, and so each stage of life, she sees the world a little bit differently. So it makes sense that the illustrations would change a little bit with her.

[Ben Clanton]

We each use some of our own supplies. In the case of the caterpillar stage, given that it was like this kind of toddler, new to the world, that I took a similar let's explore, play approach with art. I ended up using all sorts of things. Anything I could get my hands on. Watercolors, ink. I did leaf pressings, stamps, markers, colored pencil, and color collaged it all together.

[Andy Chow Musser]

For the butterfly section, I used gouache, which is a type of watercolor and colored pencil. I was a bit stumped about how to write the ending. And then I learned a really helpful fact that butterflies, when they're born, they don't know how to fly. And it takes them some practice to learn how to use their wings. And that really informed how I wrote my section. I think Popilia really learns that it's okay to fail and that practice is really important. And that being tenacious and trying something over and over again pays off.

[Corey R. Tabor]

One great takeaway from the book is Pilio's determination. Andy has a great section in his part where Pilio is like I'm a butterfly and I am gonna fly and just that like I don't know that determination is a great thing that you can take from this.

[Ben Clanton]

I think one of the things that Popilio discovers as she goes through this journey is that it's okay to have help to find a friend. That's one of my favorite parts that ended up getting into the book is we have this mouse that reoccurs throughout all three parts. And that friendship I think reflects our own sort of friendship too in the making of the book.

[Andy Chow Musser]

I hope that readers enjoy the story and they have a fun time and I hope it encourages them to collaborate with the people around them instead of seeing other people or friends as competition, seeing them as potential partners for making something new.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Andy Chow Musser, Ben Clanton and Corey R. Taber talking about their children's book Papilio.

[Andy Chow Musser]

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[Andrew Limbong]

It's funny what art gets made by coincidence and chemistry. For instance, the Caldecott winning picture book Chuch Helped only exists because Andrea L. Rogers and Rebecca Koons happened to bump into each other at the Cherokee National Holiday. And as they tell it, the two of them just clicked.

[Andrea L. Rogers]

This is the baby. We call him Chooch. The word for boy or son in Cherokee is a chucha. The word for girl is age Yucha. But everyone just calls me Sissy. That's how it begins.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

In the children's book Chooch Helped, Chooch is a two year old boy who just is trying to be helpful.

[Andrea L. Rogers]

Educci made grape dumplings. Chooch helped.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Chooch dumped the flower on the kitchen floor.

[Andrea L. Rogers]

It Logie planted a garden. Chooch helped.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Chooch pulled the plants out of the ground.

[Andrea L. Rogers]

So Choo Chelp is it's a sibling story.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Andrea L. Rogers is a sibling herself and a mother of siblings. She's also the author of Choo Chilped.

[Andrea L. Rogers]

And so this story is about two siblings sort of figuring out their relationship. And of course, the older one has to lead because they're older, so they're the mentor. But they don't realize that until things kind of come to a head and there's some yelling, but then there's forgiveness and there's understanding.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

For our series, Picture this. Andrea L. Rogers and artist Rebecca Koons talked about how, because of their chance meeting, Koontz not only illustrated her first ever children's book, but also joined Rogers in winning the 2025 Caldecott Medal for Chooch helped.

[Rebecca Koons]

It is wild and incredibly unusual and atypical, and I am in awe.

[Andrea L. Rogers]

Pretty much every couple of days I tell my husband, hey, you know what? A book I wrote won the Caldecott because I don't know if I believe it yet.

[Rebecca Koons]

So Andrea and I met at the Cherokee National Holiday. She had a booth and she was doing book signings. She was in front of a gallery where I show my work in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. And we started talking. I realized that one of the books she had written was a book I had at home.

[Andrea L. Rogers]

She told me who she was, and I said, oh, that's so funny, because I'm about to sell another picture book, and I love your work. I've already sent pictures of your work to my editor this morning while I'm sitting here in front of the gallery.

[Rebecca Koons]

And we just clicked and everything came together. After that, it was. It was a very serendipitous meeting.

[Andrea L. Rogers]

From there, she did some sketches, and I was like, this is perfect. This is. She's amazing. And I knew that already. But I'm like, she is also the right person for this book. And part of that was also there was stuff I didn't have to explain. Like if I mentioned what gigging was, she knew what gigging was, and she could show it.

[Rebecca Koons]

My work involves many layers. A little bit of collaging, some painting, a lot of line work. I start with one layer, and then I add layer on top of layer, and I add and subtract things as I go. I start with a color and a texture, and then I add another color and a texture on top of that. And sometimes the layers and textures are somewhat translucent. And then I collage in different elements. I draw part of it, and then I paint over that. And so it creates a lot of depth. This is a technique that I have developed over many years with my fine art. It just took some time to translate my style into work that would work for a children's book.

[Andrea L. Rogers]

I love Rebecca's night scenes. There's the bicycle one where he's tuning it up, and it kind of looks like it's sunset. You've got fireflies, and so I love that sky. And then the gigging scene. Gigging for crawdads at night, which is, you know, it's something that a lot of people do and something we used to do. It's just going out and hunting for crawdads at night. So you're moving rocks around, and you can also gig for frogs or gig for fish. And so there's a really long pole. Traditionally, a blacksmith would have made sort of a fork, and then it goes on the end of a really long pole so that you can reach things in the deeper water that you can see but maybe can't get to.

[Rebecca Koons]

My siblings, my sister and brother did not use the gigging forks to catch crawdads. They would just use their hands, and then they would put them in the fire and cook them alive or dead. I'm not sure which. And so I was trying to pull out a lot of Oklahoma in this, because when I go back to visit, I just love the summer evenings with fireflies. And the sunsets in Oklahoma are very soft. And when I think of Oklahoma, where they're from, where we're from, Andrea and I, I think of that warm color palette, earth tones, warm colors. I wanted a lot of light and sun. And so those colors kind of came to me naturally when I thought of the characters in the story. And because it's a story of warmth and of love and sibling love, those colors seemed right for that.

[Andrea L. Rogers]

The drawings, they are warm. It's like Frank home of pottery made with the red clay. Right. And so, to me, this is a very universal story. I thought about, you know, when my kid helped make great dumplings, and the kitchen was totally covered in flour afterwards, even though I wasn't thrilled with cleaning up the flour, I wouldn't trade the chance to make grape dumplings with my kid for anything. And so I was thinking about the things that we experienced in our lives and how we all make food. And a lot of us do have cultural traditions, which it takes a while for children to be able to be involved in in a way that's less messy. And so. But if they're not involved from the beginning in their own culture, then when they grow up, they're not going to be as invested in their own culture. And so there has to be patience and grace on the part of everyone in a family for the family to work together.

[Rebecca Koons]

I think, for me, this book speaks a lot to kindness and care, and I think we need more of that than ever right now. And children need to see that and feel that, and tenderness is still okay for boys and girls, and we can have disagreements and still love each other and care for each other.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

That was illustrator Rebecca Koons and author of the Andrea L. Rogers, talking about their Caldecott winning children's book, Chooch Helped.

[Andrew Limbong]

And that is it for this week on NPR's Book of the Day. Let us know what you think. You can write to [e-mail] I'm Andrew Limbong. The podcast is produced by Chloe Weiner and edited by Megan Sullivan. Our founding editor is Petra Maher. The show elements for this week were produced and edited by Ashley Brown, Katherine Fink, Melissa Gray, Samantha Balaban, Julia Corcoran, Emiko Tamagawa and Gabriel Donatov. Yolanda Sanguini is our executive producer. Thanks for listening.

[Andy Chow Musser]

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