A Gift from Saint Francis: The First Creche

This story is half about the life of Saint Francis and half about how the first creche came to be. The first part of the book covers Francis' love for the poor, separation from his father, preaching to the birds, and his love of Christmas, which leads into the second half about his creating the first Creche. The pictures are beautiful and simple earth tone paintings that seem to capture what things really looked like at the time when Sr. Francis was walking the streets of Assisi. There are three pictures fully covering their facing pages. On the remaining 2 facing pages of the book there is one page which is fully a picture (except for one place) and the other, on the average has 12 lines of typing taking 1/3-1/2 of the page (sideways). The reading is on a third grade level. I think that it would be enjoyed by young children (3-4 years old) to third grade.