Customer Reviews

Cheaper by the Dozen

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I used to giggle over this book as a kid. It was a huge hit amongst my classmates, and we wore through several copies of Cheaper By the Dozen.

The Gilbreth family of 12 kids, parented by efficiency experts Lillian and Frank, were a bit eccentric and very funny. I still can remember the line one of the kids rapped out to a guest at dinner "Please, we are NOT in the mood for an organ recital." This was the standard reprimand for belching in the family and never intended for public airing.

The Gilbreths were actually serious innovators of efficiency for the new factory assembly lines, figuring out the number of movements needed to complete a task and establishing a unit of work movement called the Therblig. They were also warm, funny, loving parents and their story is a good one to read out loud to kids, who invariably love this book.

Has a story been so good that it made you laugh out loud? Well Frank B. Gilbreth and Ernestine Gilbreth Carry wrote an excellent biography of their childhood titled, "Cheaper by the Dozen." It is a very funny book. It is full of all the adventures the Gilbreth family went throgh in the first two decades of the 20th century.

Can you imagine having to take care of 12 kids and a dog? That would be a pretty hard job. I love reading this book especially when their father (Mr. Gilbreth) was teaching the kids Morse code. All over the house on every wall was Morse code. The kids had to find out what they said. Some would say, "Go to my room and under my bed is a deck of cards."

I encourage any one who loves non-fiction biography to read this book. I am sure you will like it too. If you don't like it in the beginning you should stick with it because it gets extremely good at the end.

The first thing I have to say about this book is that it's funny and will make the reader understand how a super large family really can make it financially.
I read this book the first time because it was required in junior high (now known as middle school). I just read it again with my teenage daughters to maybe bring some understanding to them about saving time and money and that time is money. This father is the king of creative spending and overlapping chores to save time.
A very enjoyable book to read. This is an excellent book to co-read with your children of any age and might help you get a few frugal points accross to them.
It's a comical read laced with some very neccesary ideas of financial knowledge.
This is a quick book to read, and in my case a shared time of family financial understanding. Don't pass up reading this fun book. It'll make you laugh and think..."That's a good idea." reading about dad's fanatical penny pinching ways.
A great story that everyone should read.

My mother used to read me this book when I was growing up in the 60's and 70's - but when we lost our copy we could never find another one - they were as rare as Hen's teeth - and we definitely wanted another copy. What a relief to see it is reprinted, and to find that the stories are just as funny and wonderful as they ever were.

This is a book about the Gilbreth family; Father, mother and twelve (yes 12!) children. Most especially this is the story of the Father, and his time-motion studies which he applied in work and in life. He was a time and motion expert in the first couple of decades of the twentieth century - travelling internationally and showing the new factories how to improve their production by increasing their efficiency.

This book has been written, with great affection and humour, by two of his children - Frank and Ernestine. I find it truly amazing that not only did the family boast twelve children but they all learned to speak foreign languages, touch typing, mental maths and even morse code - all because their father worked out dozens of ingenious ways to motivate them - although often it was quite reluctantly on their part. Their father was a truly larger than life character who dominates the book with his booming pronouncements and occassionally humbling mistakes - but you can almost see his eyes twinkling with a ready laugh.

This isn't just a book for adults, kids love having the stories read to them. If nothing else there are wonderful tips about how to get your children to want to learn!

This book is the story of an unusual family at the turn of the century, with twelve children. The father is an efficiency expert who runs the family like it is a factory assembly line, with everything timed down to the minute. Even the times for bathing are scheduled, so that the household runs smoothly. Mr. Gilbreth practices all of his ideas on how to run an efficient business on his family; they are the guinea pigs for new ideas.
He is the parent who disciplines all the kids, and the mom is really understanding of how hard it is to live in such an unusual family. Both of the parents were professionals, as the mom was also a psychologist and industrial engineer. They applied their professional ideas on raising the 12 kids. The children learn foreign languages, long division and about the solar system, using methods from Mr. Gilbreth's professional life. They were also taught touch typing and morse code by efficient methods. It is a very humorous look at the life of a large and unusual family. The ending of the book is sad, as Mr. Gilbreth dies, leaving Mrs. Gilbreth to raise the children alone.

The tone of the book is humor, as many of the situations are really funny, and the parents approach life with a sense of humor. The father is often very sarcastic, but not in a mean way. He liked to parade the family around and even though he was proud of them, he found the reactions of other people very funny. The parent's sense of humor made dealing with the problems of a large family easier, and made for a more loving lifestyle. Even though raising a family that large was serious business, they never took life too seriously. I think that is an important way to raise a family, by keeping a sense of humor. The father is a smart man, and he is never characterized as an idiot, even though he does some crazy things to help his family. The main theme throughout the book is the importance of humor in their lives.

CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN

Format: Paperback,1st ed., 180 pages ISBN: 0553272500 Publisher: Bantam Doubleday Dell Books for Younger Readers Pub. Date: February 1981 Other Formats: Hardback Recommended Age:Third grade and up

Wonderful...Once you start to read the first page you wont be able to put the book down. This perfect way to spend a rainy day. You will be very amused when you read about the hilarious events of the Gilbreth family. The family of twelve children have many adventures you will enjoy reading. The father is almost crazy and a very successful business man. He is very strict and overprotective. He won't let his daughters wear make up or dress the way they like to. They slowly change his mind and begin to dress their way. He thinks his children can do anything and is also believed he could do anything. He loved jokes and laughing and you will love the practical jokes they play on each other. The rich family loves to go to movies then out for ice cream. They also spend their summers at the beach, where their Dad forces them to learn to swim. He wants them to learn as much as possible about everything so he always finds a way to teach them new things. As an efficiency expert he made sure that everything was done in a time efficient way. It was a sin to waste time in the Gilbreth house and he was constantly coming up with new ways to save time. The Dad in the story liked to parade around and show off his kids. Although this was embarassing to some of the kids as they got older Dad found it hilarious. The mother also was sometimes embarrassed or insulted by the attention they got or the comments other people made. This book will keep you laughing right up to the last chapter when Dad dies. The book is a mixture of humor and then sadness at the ending. This is an excellent book that everybody should read. I recommend this book for anyone that knows how to read no matter how old or young!

Dina Bastianini, Pine-Richland High School

Non-fiction is a category with very few books I would recommend that everyone read. Usually, the topics are tied too closely to interests. I think that this is one of the few books that is actually of general interest.

Frank Gilbreth Sr. was the sort of over-the-top character you could imagine would invent a new field, and so he did. Motion study, and industrial engineering owe him a lot. His wife and he were an excellent team who innovated the way people work.

The book takes great pains to explain the factors that made their family unique, from size to father and mother. All sorts of bizarre and funny moments are recorded within. Personality of the players is excellently displayed in the various events.

If you want a peep into another era and culture, or just some humorous anecdotes, this book is excellent. If you are entering the workforce, you might find some excellent time-saving tips in there as well. This is simply one of my favorite books.

Cheaper By the Dozen
Frank B. Gilbreth, Jr., and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey
B.Masukawa
P. 6

Cheaper By the Dozen is about a family with twelve children by Frank B. Gilbreth and Erenstine Gilbreth Carey. The father of the dozen, is a man that's headstrong, funny, and agreeable. He is a father that is happily situated in a crowd of children. Lillie, the mother, is a strong woman that specializes in Psychology. She is the one in the household that would dry the tears, resolve arguments, and give hugs and kisses to her twelve kids. The parents are a couple that usually agrees with each other. The father gets upset at anyone that hurts his wife's feelings gets punished. Together they raised Anne, Mary, Erenstine, Martha, Frank, William, Lill, Fred, Dan, Jack, Bob, and Jane.
As the kids grow up, they became very educated by their father. Everywhere they went, he would stop and explain how the object came into being or it's significance. Mr. Gilbreth taught them how to use a typewriter, multiply two-digit numbers quickly, and skills to help study for school better. Lillie taught her children her wisdom, strength, and skills that are needed in everyone's daily lives. The family has committees with each other to discuss different matters of the family. Matters that was discussed, was getting a dog, what kind of new rug to get, and the kinds of clothes that they were allowed to wear. The dozen children always play with each other and become very close. In the end, Mr. Gilbreth dies by the fault of his heart problems that he has had for years. After his death, Lillie took her husband's job and continued to raise her family.
My favorite part of the book is when the author talks about the Jazz age. During this time, Anne asks to able to wear shorter skirts and underwear, silk stockings, bobbed hair, and pointed shoes. The father rejects this new fashion because he thinks it's wrong to have your bare knees showing and have underwear that you can see through. Anne decided to cut her hair short and resulted to make her father very upset. This is my favorite part because she stood up for what she believed in. Anne didn't so this for herself , but did it to help her younger sisters to wear the things that they wanted. In my opinion, she has been brought up well if she did something that would to upset her parents for the benefit for her siblings.
I chose this particular book because I wanted to read something that I myself would never experience. To be part of a family with twelve kids was something that I'd never be a part of. As a started to read this book, I was amazed at how the parents controlled their children. Every single child was happy, educated, and loved each other. This tale showed me the high and low points in a large family. My favorite character was the mother because even her husband died, she stood strong and continued to raise their family. Cheaper By the Dozen is a book that shows how a family endures the casualties in life, but stays together.

In this day and age of 1.3 child-households and perfectionistic yuppie parents, it was refreshing to discover "Cheaper by the Dozen."

With 12 children, the Galbraith family is a delightful bedlam. The parents are both well-educated, strongly-opinionated individuals and through out the book we see Mr. Galbraith's great respect and admiration for his wife. They raise their children in unusual but thoughtful and amusing ways... painting a huge mural depicting the solar system on the walls of their summer house, teaching their 4 year-olds how to do long-division in their heads at the dinner table, insisting that the nannies speak to the babies in French and German.

It is such a pleasure to read about people who have strong convictions and follow their own good judgement. The Galbraiths seem to have been just such a family. Even better, their story is written in a compelling, amusing and touching fashion.

By all means, by "Cheaper by the Dozen" and share it with someone you love.

Cheaper by the Dozen is probably one of the most exciting biographies I have ever read. It is about a dozen children who are raised in the 1910's-1920's by two "motion study" loving parents, who have them do some pretty strange things, such as: listen to French and German language lessons while taking baths, give sealed bids when asking for a job, and initial work charts. The book is full of humor that keeps the reader interested. If you're in for a humorous biography, this is the book for you.