WHERE'S THE FLY?

``Where's the fly?'' appears in large type opposite an illustration of a fly, enlarged many times, against a textured brown background. A turn of the page reveals that the answer is ``On the dog's nose,'' depicted with a close-up of a hound's head with a small fly on its nose. Then, ``Where's the dog?'' Each answer effectively moves readers away from the fly and the dog, as the pictures show ever wider horizons, from yard to street corner, from neighborhood to town, city, bay, ocean, and finally, to the earth floating in space. ``Where's the fly?'' Cohen (Pigeon, Pigeon, 1992, etc.) asks one more time. Barnet, working in colored pencil, is more methodical than the text as she creates the effect of a zoom lens working in reverse, revealing an ever broader swath of the world. While yard, street corner, playground, and school are not dramatically different points of reference, she insistently pushes the perspective back, and subsequently makes the concepts of Istvan Banyai's Zoom and Re- Zoom (both, 1995) accessible to the preschool audience. Running across the top of every recto page are tiny icons, each representing a matching object in the drawing opposite it. As the drawings increase in complexity the objects get more challenging to locate; it's a bonus in an already fine book that works as a brainteaser for young readers and a philosophical launch pad for older ones. (Picture book. 4+)