BALTIMORE ORIOLES

Surely, for kids who can read words like ""maple,"" and ""caterpillar,"" and even ""Baltimore oriole,"" it ought to be possible to write something that is simple without being sing-songy. The maneuvers of this backyard pair -- ""They fly around the yard. They call back and forth. They feed each other caterpillars. They mate."" -- are on the dull side, and we were most impressed by the baronial old house of their unindividualized human hosts. Higginbottom's gold and blue-green drawings have a certain ruddy realism, and this is by far the easiest of bird lives, though also far less interesting than, say, McClung's Redbird.