Happy Birthday to You! (1959)

Happy Birthday to You! is a 1959 children's book by Dr. Seuss, the first all-color picture book.

Plot

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".

Adaptations

Although Happy Birthday to You! was not directly adapted, The Birthday Bird appears in an episode of The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss.

The book is dedicated to the author's "good friends" and "The Children of San Diego County".

A film adaption of the book was pitched by John Kricfalusi to Reel FX Animation, but never came to fruition.