TEN FLASHING FIREFLIES

Don't use the ``e'' word (ecology) on this nighttime reverie. Into the gloaming go two children, intent on gathering an ensemble of fireflies. One, two, three, four . . . their quarry mounts to ten, flashing bright in their glass cage. When the children retire for the night, they find that the fireflies are ``Blinking so slowly in our jar.'' Off comes the lid and the fireflies escape into the night, dazzling again. Sturges's text counts up and back, a liturgical melodiousness in its pleasant, repetitive fashioning. The story is entirely at home in Vojtech's dreamy, nocturnal watercolors, the fireflies radiating just the right amount of magical incandescence. There is a summer's insouciance to the illustrations, which show warm, rich colors coaxed from the darkling landscape: The bright windows add a secure note, the shadowy silhouettes of the pine woods a touch of menace. If the message regarding freedom and caring is well trod, it's all for the best; a message like this bears repeating. A book quietly luminous as its subject. (Picture book. 3-6)