A young shepherd hears a cricket singing at his feet. The cricket speaks to him and foretells that the coming winter will be both special and especially cold. Then he disappears back into the grass.The winter is indeed especially harsh, but on a star-studded night the cricket and the shepherd boy make their way to a manger huddled low between two hills. There they find a mother and father with a child who radiates light and warmth into the world.This innocent and warmhearted nativity tale is intended for parents to read to their children at Christmas time. While the story itself is timeless, this tale is most suitable for children from preschool to grade four or five. "Also highly recommended is Reg Down's The Cricket and the Shepherd Boy: A Christmas Tale , a touching holiday story that bring the generous and reverent spirit of Christmas to life year-round." --Midwest Book Review "Who but Reg Down could bring us a new Christmas story that glows with such warmth and beauty? The Cricket and the Shepherd Boy is a gift for the Season of Love. The author's paintings filling each page evoke a wholesome joy that resonates in wonderful ways with the story itself. I can tell as I hold this book that it will carry its message and its warmth far - families throughout the world will mark the Christmas season by taking it off the shelf and reading it each year. And then it will live on in the hearts of the children and adults who hear it. The Cricket and the Shepherd Boy is a treasure." --Waldorf Books Reg Down grew up in Canada, Namibia, South Africa and Ireland. He trained as a eurythmist, an art of movement and gesture, in England and Germany. The father of three, he has taught eurythmy in Waldorf schools in Australia, Canada and the United States, as well as at Rudolf Steiner College in Sacramento, California. He is the author of  Leaving Room for the Angels , a book on eurythmy and artistic pedagogy,  Color and Gesture - the Inner Life of Color , and a novel,  The Fetching of Spring . He now lives in Thornhill, Ontario, Canada after spending many years in the USA.