| Happy Birthday to You! | |
| Author: | Dr. Seuss |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English |
| Genre: | Children's literature |
| Publisher: | Random House |
| Pub Date: | 1959 (renewed in 1987) |
| Media Type: | Print (hardcover and paperback) |
| Pages: | 64 pages |
| Preceded By: | Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories |
| Followed By: | One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish |
Happy Birthday to You! is a 1959 children's book by Dr. Seuss, the first all-color picture book.[1]
It deals with a fantastic land called Katroo, where the Birthday Bird throws the reader an amazing party on their special day. It consists of a running description of a fantastical celebration, narrated in the second person, of the reader's birthday, from dawn to late night.
The celebration includes fantastical and colorful gifts, foods and a whirl of activities all arranged by the Birthday Bird for the reader's birthday. It focuses on the reader's self-actualization and concludes with the happy and exhausted reader falling blissfully asleep.
A popular Seuss paragraph in this book reads: "Today you are you, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is youer than you".[2]
Although Happy Birthday to You! was not directly adapted, The Birthday Bird appears in an episode of The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss.[3]
The book is dedicated to the author's "good friends" and "The Children of San Diego County".[4]