Chukfi Rabbit's Big, Bad Bellyache: A Trickster Tale

Deep in Choctaw country, trickster Chukfi Rabbit is always figuring out some way to avoid work at all costs.

The way the Choctaws tell it, Chukfi Rabbit is the laziest -- and hungriest -- trickster rabbit there is. When Bear, Turtle, Fox, and Beaver agree on an everybody-work-together day to build Ms. Possum a new house, Chukfi Rabbit says he's too busy to help -- until he hears there will be a big feast after the work is done: cornbread biscuits, grape dumplings, tanchi labona (a Choctaw kind of corn stew), and best of all, lots of fresh, homemade butter! While everyone else helps build the house, Chukfi helps himself to all that yummy butter. What a furry fiend! Greedy Chukfi soon learns that being lazy and disappointing your friends leads to one really, really big, bad bellyache! A classic trickster tale in the Choctaw tradition.

Greg Rodgers (1968-2014) was a storyteller and writer. He was a member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma and often told traditional and contemporary Choctaw stories at schools, libraries, festivals, and tribal events throughout the United States. The Choctaw Nation paid tribute to Rodgers, saying the Nation "is proud of his work and the legacy he has left for the children of the Nation."

Leslie Stall Widener is the creator of picture books, educational materials, and magazine stories. A member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, she grew up in Tulsa, where she often explored the area around her grandparents' farm, an allotment her grandmother received for her Choctaw ancestry. Widener lives in McKinney, Texas, with her husband. Visit her online at lesliestallwidener.com.