Stryer, Andrea Stenn 1938-

Personal

Born 1938; married Lubert Stryer (a professor). Education: University of Chicago, MA; Southern Connecticut State University, M.L.S.

Addresses

Home and office—Stanford, CA. E-mail—andrea@stryer.com.

Career

Author, educator, and librarian. Worked in public libraries and public and private school libraries for thirty years; taught in elementary and junior high schools.

Awards, Honors

Schneider Family Book Award, Moonbeam Award, and Bank Street College of Education Best Books designation, all 2008, all for Kami and the Yaks.

Writings

The Celestial River: Creation Tales of the Milky Way, August House Publishers (Little Rock, AR), 1998.

Kami and the Yaks, illustrated by Bert Dodson, Bay Otter Press (Palo Alto, CA), 2007.

Sidelights

Andrea Stenn Stryer, a former librarian and educator, is the author of Kami and the Yaks, an award-winning picture book set in the Himalayan Mountains. "To reach kids, to involve them in reading, in stories, in facts, and ideas is personally very gratifying and educationally significant," Stryer remarked in an interview on the Ravenstone Press Web site.

Kami and the Yaks centers on a deaf Sherpa boy who overcomes his physical disability and proves his worth to his family. When Kami notices that his father and brother have trouble locating their herd of yaks, he sets out to discover why the animals have not yet returned that evening. After braving a dangerous climb through a hailstorm, Kami finds the yaks protecting a calf whose leg is caught in the rocks. Once he arrives back home, Kami must communicate the danger to his father, despite his inability to speak. "Many children will recognize Kami's frustration and then pride after he bravely solves a family problem," Gillian Engberg remarked in Booklist. "Kami's deafness figures into the story, but it's his grit and resourcefulness that drive the action forward," noted a contributor in Publishers Weekly, and Carolyn Janssen, writing in School Library Journal, observed that Kami and the Yaks "opens the doors to new worlds and gives readers a character to admire."

Biographical and Critical Sources

PERIODICALS

Astronomy, May, 1999, review of The Celestial River: Creation Tales of the Milky Way, p. 108.

Booklist, February 1, 2007, Gillian Engberg, review of Kami and the Yaks, p. 49.

Kirkus Reviews, March 1, 2007, review of Kami and the Yaks, p. 232.

Publishers Weekly, May 14, 2007, review of Kami and the Yaks, p. 53.

School Library Journal, February, 1999, Angela J. Reynolds, review of The Celestial River, p. 128; April, 2007, Carolyn Janssen, review of Kami and the Yaks, p. 117.

ONLINE

Andrea Stenn Stryer Home Page,http://www.stryer.com (August 10, 2008).

Ravenstone Press Web site,http://www.ravenstonepress.com/ (August 10, 2008), "Authors among Us—Children's Writers Who Are or Who Have Been Librarians."