Best Friends

These poems do just what they're supposed to: They make you say, ""Yes, that's the way it is.'' In Kathleen Fraser's ``Wrestling,'' boys whose playfighting just yesterday led to tears sheepishly start in all over again. Or in Dorothy Aldis's ``Bursting,'' hysterical children can't remember why they're laughing. The 18 poets include Jack Prelutsky, Judith Viorst, Ruth Krauss, Myra Cohn Livingston and Hopkins himself; a few, such as Lois Duncan, are better known for other literary work. Watts's color cartoons beautifully capture children in varied moodseating the night away at a slumber party, sulking in loneliness, making contact on the telephone. A winner. (58)