Top Drawer(s): Dinosaurs Love Underpants by Claire Freedman

Dinosaurs were all wiped out,
A long way back in history.
No one knows quite how or why.
Now this book solves the mystery....

If ever a literary work called for "a willing suspension of disbelief," it's Clair Freedman's newest picture book treatise on the joys of underwear, Dinosaurs Love Underpants! (Aladdin, 2009).

It seems that dinosaurs are totally taken by the fashion statement of early cavemen.

It all began when cavemen
Felt embarrassed in the nude.

But clever cavemen came up with novel ways to cover their keisters. Just the sight of those burly Cro Magnons in their leopard skin skivvies soon has the dinos jockeying for just the same sort of can coverage. T. rex tries to squeeze her powerful posterior into a purloined pair of prehistoric panties, but finds these human undies a bit underwhelming. Stegosaurus is put off by itchy knickers made from woolly mammoth hide. Diplodocus finds his drawers positively pinchy for his dumptruck-sized derriere.

Still, while mankind's sparse population is being de-briefed, so to speak, there still are not enough dino drawers to go around, and a catastrophic caboose-covering free-for-all fight ends in the dinosaurs' effectively extinguishing their own species, leaving the cavemen, huddling modestly behind their temporary fig leaves safe to drape their duffs in whatever scraps remain as they build a decently re-briefed new world civilization.

So when you put your undies on,
Always treat them with great care.
Don't forget briefs saved mankind.
They're not just underwear!

It's a perfect storm of skivvy silliness, with illustrator Ben Cort's cartoon critters cavorting in their rear gear, the sort of tale that keeps the early elementary crowd giggling all the way through. Pair this one with Freedman's and Cort's earlier hit Aliens Love Underpants for a top-drawer treat. As Kirkus Reviews put it wryly, "Children may find Cort's cartoon pictures of big, grumpy-looking dinosaurs sporting undies loud with polka-dots and other patterns briefly (so to speak) amusing."