'UH-OH!' SAID THE CROW

The best of Oppenheim's three new entries in the Bank Street Ready-to-Read series: on ``Level 2,'' a reader that creatively combines devices like animal voices and repetitions of words in amusingly varied phrases in a tale about animals frightened by mysterious thumps on their barn roof. ```What was that?' mewed Cat. `I don't know,' cawed Crow. `It's up there,' whinnied Mare.'' An owl hoots, the wind whistles, and the animals nervously imagine ghosts while Sheep baas, ```Go back to sleep' '' and they try vainly to get one of their number to investigate (`` `Not my Job!' grunted Hog''). The solution to the mystery isn't scary after all, but it's satisfyingly funny. Demarest's wide-eyed, freely rendered animal caricatures make the transition from spooky to comical with perfect aplomb. Also available: Row, Row, Row Your Boat (Level 1, ISBN: 0-553-09498- X), a survey of water craft with sometimes awkward variations on the well-known verse; The Christmas Witch (Level 3, ISBN: 0-553- 09392-4), a retelling of the Italian folktale about Befana. (Easy reader. 4-8)