Dinosaur Dress Up

Sirois's preposterous theories about the dinosaurs' extinction won't hold water in scientific circles, but his debut book's capacity to entertain is tremendous. Billed as a ``prehistoric cautionary tale,'' this imaginative and absurd narrative charges that the giant reptiles were fashion victims whose bickering about wardrobes led to their demise. Street's ( The Gingham Dog and the Calico Cat ) rich watercolor illustrations are marvelously hip, and her sense of composition excellent; the extroverted lizards wear eye-boggling arrays of patterns, mixing stripes with plaids and dots with zigzags. A glamorous triceratops flaunts a bikini, flip-flops and shades, a tyrannosaurus rex mom complains about her child's punk outfit, stet comma and six decked-out dino couples boogie with blissful expressions on their faces. Kudos to Sirois and Street for this tongue-in-chic lecture on the perils of narcissism. Ages 4-up. (May)