When I grew up the only strong heroine I knew was Nancy Drew, otherwise I had to look for role models in women's biographies. There were loads of strong males... all of them one-dimensional. And then the awareness of the seventies hit and for years, there were unequivocal heroines who wore tool belts and unmistakable heros wore their hearts on their sleeves. This year I've have seen some children's books that are ground breaking in fighting the war of sexual stereotyping. Their depth comes from being true to character, rather than message.

Two new and valuable heros are prize-winners; both Caldecott (best illustration for children's books) and Newbery (best children's book novel) award books feature haunting male characters.

Caldecott-winning Writer-illustrator Allen Say borders his elegant cover of Grandfather's Journey (Houghton Mifflin, $15.95; ages 5-9) with gold. This could represent the wealth of family experience that Say inherited and which he passes along to today's children. The gilt-lined cover is balanced with subtle colors and a quiet telling of the drama of life between two cultures. The book is deceptively simple, but after the covers close there's a provocative quality that begs for discussion.

Say begins his family saga with the story of his grandfather who leaves Japan to marvel and wonder at the diversity of America. In middle age, he hungers for his homeland and returns with his family to Japan. He dies an old man longing "to see California one more time." Later Say, like his grandfather, journeys to America and loves the foreign land. Like his grandfather, Say learns, "the moment I am in one country, I am homesick for the other." Say expresses, not only the missing of country, but the longing for a soul who understands his emotional conflicts.

Lois Lowry wins a second Newbery award when she gives gives a futuristic slant to adolescent issues in The Giver (Houghton Mifflin, $13.95; ages 11 and up). Jonas, the hero, is apprehensive as he approaches the Ceremony of Twelve, where he is to receive his life assignment. He sees no special aptitude in himself. Jonas is shocked when he is given the honored assignment, the Receiver of Memory, who receives from the Giver all the memories of the society. When Lowry begins the book, the idyllic society is captivating. It seems like a perfect world, but Jonas' new responsibility gives him another view of life. He learns pains and pleasures that let him see the sterility of the culture and the euphemisms that cloak its inner workings. Suffering under the weight of bearing memories for all, Jonas and the Giver come up with a courageous plan for change. Lowry entrances us with this golden life and then, bit by bit, tears away at the perfection she has built.

Emma Bull uses a fantasy setting in The Princess and the Lord of Night (HBJ, $14.95; ages 5 and up) to create a new fairy tale heroine who faces a complicated problem . This princess confronts a horrible fate; her parents will be killed by the Lord of Night if they don't satisfy her every desire. This unspoiled princess feels trapped as do her parents. She tries to delight in all she has and desire less, until one day she awakens on her thirteenth birthday with a dream that becomes a wish. Her wish carries her on a journey of good-willed giving and finally delivers her from the curse.

In this fairy tale there is no prince, only happy friendships, and a princess who rightfully deserves them.

Against a painfully realistic setting, Lesley Blake tells the Song of Be (Holt, $14.95; ages 12 and up), a young Bushman woman caught in the transition of Namibia's independence. Be is moving towards her age of independence too. She must learn to understand the madness of a farmholding mistress, the confusion of her mother who sleeps with the white farmowner, the stirrings of love for a young man of courage, and the impossibility of finding the peace of her childhood in a world where nothing is simple. This slender ninety-four page novella is thick with human emotion and deep with beautiful prose and expression.

Life is anything but simple for today's youth. They need to see heros and heroines, who like them, must break new ground.