Happy Birthday to You!
Happy Birthday to You!
 
 
This is the title that I shall read aloud to classes before emphasizing my lesson on copyright and giving credit to the original writers of information. The pages "Footnote to History" take this book beyond a beautifully illustrated celebration of how a song was created to an insightful understanding of the need for and process of obtaining copyright for original material.
 
Diane Chen for School Library Journal,
September 8, 2008
The Louisville Courier-Journal 
October 4, 2008 
   The most frequently sung song in the world was written in Louisville 119 years ago by a young teacher and her sister, an accomplished musician. "Happy Birthday to You" is the song, and it's also the title of a beautiful new children's book that deserves a place in every Louisvillian's library.
   Author Margot Theis Raven has done her research, and for local readers much will ring true. Patty Hill got her job in the city's first "kindergarten" by reading an advertisement in The Courier-Journal. She was so successful as a teacher that she left for New York, where she became a leading educator at Columbia University's teachers college, considered then and now one of the finest in the world.
   Her sister Mildred was a musician who taught generations of Louisville students. Her simple melody was first published with the title "Good Morning to All." The melody caught on — but with new lyrics — and the birthday song was the hit of the Chicago World's Fair of 1893. Later, it was sung on the radio and swept the world.
    But for decades the Hill sisters failed to get proper credit (or any compensation). One night in the early '30s, Patty Hill was sitting in the audience of an Irving Berlin Broadway musical when she heard her song being sung on stage.
   Though Mildred had died in 1916, Patty sued to regain the copyright, and a court awarded it to her in 1935. After Patty's death in 1946, all proceeds from the commercial use of the song went into a foundation for early childhood education. Every year new earnings of between $1 million and $2 million go into that fund. And they will continue to do so until 2030, when the copyright will expire.
   Each one of us — without exception — has a memory about the Hill sisters' song and the merry times when it has been sung. My own has to do with my mother, who each year on my birthday (whether I was in Louisville, New York or even Tokyo) would phone me first thing and sing the song.
   This is the first year she's not here to sing it to me, but reading Margot Theis Raven and Chris Soentpiet's wonderful book was a poignant substitute. — Keith L. Runyon - Book editor
  Evansville Vanderburgh Public Library, Evansville, IN
 
Did you know that they lived in Louisville?  No
t far from here!  Margot Theis Raven relates the story of the sisters who wrote the words and music in 1889 and 1890, as one of the many songs that Patty Hill used to teach her kindergarten children.  She came up with the words to the songs, and her sister Mildred wrote the music to them. Happy Birthday to You! The Mystery Behind the Most Famous Song in The World includes more details of the sisters' lives with their large family and the early years of kindergartens.  Full page paintings by Chris Soentpiet add to the enjoyment of this  book.