HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!

By Dr. Seuss(Theodor S. Geisel '25). New York: Random House, 1959. $2.95.

Parents beware! You cannot possibly give your child a birthday such as is provided by Dr. Seuss. Perhaps it is just as well, as it takes a mere twenty days to clean up when it is over. But for the Birthday Child there can be no celebration more enchanting, exciting, energetic or exhausting. The glories are glorious indeed and the Birthday will obviously be remembered for life. The mythical town of Katroo specializes in Birthdays and has everything systematically planned under the supervision of the ''brainiest bird-brain" in town.

This is just fair warning that Dr. Seuss is off again, in verse, drawings, and imagination, into one of his own special worlds of delight.

The creatures who adorn the pages are as screwy as ever, with their amazing topknots, coy expressions, and active extremities. The Smorgasbord turns out to be an animal with a tier of Lazy Susans sprouting from his back, hot dogs unroll from an enormous spool, while the flowers are the envy of Burbank, the architecture is guaranteed to distress Frank Lloyd Wright, and the numerous contraptions will keep the Patent Office in a swivet. These are a few tidbits to show how to manage a Proper Birthday, all of it, nat urally, described in words as creatively unusual as are the full-color illustrations.

Since you cannot duplicate these fantasies, you can at least enjoy and share them with any child, birthday or not, who will be happy just seeing them on paper.