June - Author of the Month June 01 2025

We all love stories. Whether in a book or a re-telling of an event, or in a film or play; stories teach and inspire and make life easier to understand. A good story can make us laugh or feel compassion or even anger or anxiety. A good storyteller knows how to choose a story that will delight listeners by delivering it with the right emphasis, to make it maximally engaging. Jakob Streit was one of these truly great storytellers.

In Waldorf schools, every teacher is a storyteller. The reliance on oral teaching is strong in Waldorf education. With the personal relationship of the teacher with her students, the story is enhanced by the teacher’s knowledge of the young people in front of her. These stories sink deep into children’s consciousnesses—and will continue to inspire them for the rest of their lives. 

"Summer Reading” is the common name for libraries and teachers to introduce this idea of bringing stories into our children’s lives, but let’s instead call it, “Transport to Wonders through Good Stories.” One of the most health-providing elements of summertime is to allow students a break from the often-stressful world of learning and schedules. Time expands, breathing slows, and a child can get lost in different worlds, with all kinds of interesting characters, through the reading of good books. For those just learning to read, the stories can be read aloud. For beginning and independent readers, disappearance into literature becomes possible—into the shade of a tree or the corner of a room—and into a good storyteller’s universe.

Jakob Streit has written many stories for children in elementary grades. He taught in a Waldorf school in Switzerland for decades. Streit’s Tales of Gnomes and Trolls might be one of the best examples of great storytelling, for children who can read on their own or for children who will listen to these stories read aloud. In Tatatuk’s Journey to Crystal Mountain, the challenge of self-development for wee Tatatuk is mighty as he makes his way over seven mountains to bring back a crystal so that he can be promoted from the status of “root gnome” to that of a “crystal gnome.” 

"The story must never be sacrificed to introduce a concept or to build vocabulary. A good story, told well, will entice a child to sink deeply into the world described, drinking in both vocabulary and moral ideals through character."

Many modern stories make deliberate “object lessons” out of courage, or collaboration, or trust. These stories are designed almost exclusively to make the point of the quality in question. Not so in stories by Jakob Streit, who believed the story was the point and must be well told. The story must never be sacrificed to introduce a concept or to build vocabulary. These oft-used techniques can drain a story of its depth and richness of language. A good story, told well, will entice a child to sink deeply into the world described, drinking in both vocabulary and moral ideals through character. 

For an older student, from ages twelve to sixteen, Jakob Streit tells compelling stories of heroic figures in the stream of human development. In his Louis Braille, A Blind Boy Invents Braille, it is impossible to turn away from the story once it starts. The little boy who accidentally blinded himself at age three, is forever cheerful and clever at figuring out ways to discover, because of his blindness. During early adolescent years, when having something to complain about is half the fun, Jakob Streit provides a story that helps the reader to understand that their challenges, or difficulties, might be insignificant compared to those of another. The reader might be uplifted to consider ways to rise above her own troubles to find a better approach.

Gnomes & Trolls and Louis Braille. Streit wrote many moving biographies: Columban from ancient Ireland, Saint Odelia who was a patron saint for the blind, Brother Francis of Assisi. And there is the fictional tale of Geron & Virtus, two adolescent boys — one from the northern tribes of Northern Germany and one from the declining empire of Rome. This is but a partial list of Jakob Streit’s many books! And there are more planned in the coming months: the two boys named Jesus with legends of Jesus’s early years; and a stirring essay on why children need fairy tales, which includes Streit’s own fairy tales of Alpine wee folk.

So it is that stories lift us up to new ideas, new inspiration, new appreciation. Especially for the young, this kind of storytelling is rich in its results for the child. A lighting up inside when remembering the tales becomes a gift for life, to ease the stress of growing up, or the leveling of middle age, or the loneliness of older age. Jakob Streit knew these truths and wrote his stories with the zest and nuanced delivery each good story deserves. To pull out of a whole good story a moral, or an object to deliver directly is to risk letting a good story collapse into something specific or material. Both Tatatuk and Louis Braille live their lives using courage when needed, friendship when needed, patience when needed, and collaboration when needed. Sometimes all of these are required at once. 

Thank goodness for storytellers like Jakob Streit! He shows us how to weave a yarn of engaging variety and power. At the end of a good story like his, our hearts our stronger, our resolve to be dedicated to the good in life is clearer, and our commitment to trust and endurance are the brighter for having read or heard the stories! Celebrate this author of the month with us.  Jakob Streit lives on and on in his brilliant, gentle, glorious stories of lives and legends, of heroes and challenges, of life and of love.

25% Off All Titles by Jakob Streit – All Month Long!

Want more information?
Tell Me a Story: The Narrative of Active Learning
Book Review: Louis Braille
Book Review: Tatatuck's Journey to Crystal Mountain
June's Author of the Month Book Collection