WITH ONE WHITE WING

The answers to Spires's poetic puzzlesone riddle per pageare easy to guess, but there's still a lot to linger over and reflect on in this quietly humorous collection. ``When you leave I get bored/and pretend I'm a room,'' says the mirror; the candle's ``life is as long as an evening''; trees ``have black bones and pale green flesh'' and a starfish can ``never see what I am named after.'' There's an egg that's hardboiled about being ``cracked and beaten'' and a mosquito whose buzz is not worse than his bite. Blegvad's gentle watercolors plant clues and false leads with a light touch. (Picture book. 4-6)