A wise dragonfly helps a despondent cricket realize that he is special in his own way. PreSchool-Grade 3 In the cleanest, clearest prose he's written to date, Howe tells a simple fable that deserves to stay in print a long, long, time. The littlest cricket is so miserable that he refuses to make music because the frog called him ugly. He wishes he were a butterfly instead. When he sees the wise old spider, she tells him what she thinks of him and what she has learned in her spider's life ``spinning and waiting, waiting and spinning.'' He finally feels beautiful, and of course, he is. He begins to fiddle again, and a butterfly, hearing, says, ``I wish I were a cricket.'' Young's shimmering pastels create an insect's view, moving from the cricket's dark jungle of grass with flashes of sun, to light from the butterfly's viewpoint. An excellent lap book, the story also tells well. The cricket is Everychild who stopped the music because someone criticized casually, thoughtlessly. It takes a wise friend to bring the music back, if it's possible. This book could help. Helen Gregory, Grosse Pointe Pub . Lib . , Mich. Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.