Professor Saurus, dinosaur curator at the museum, explains what happened to the ancient giants: they wore clothes, avidly collecting costumes for different activities and competing for the most elegant styles--until they began to quarrel about fashion, tearing each other's garments to shreds and hanging around in their underwear, arguing. Naturally, they caught cold and died, but their descendants the birds memorialize their various clothing in their bright plumage. Tall tale or fable, the idea here is slight but developed with amusing logic, while Street's complacently debonair dinosaurs, decked out in garish exaggeration of human attire, are sure to tickle young funny- bones. (Picture book. 4-8)
