Cheaper by the Dozen

“A touching family portrait that also happens to be very, very funny. . . its appeal is timeless.” —Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post

One of the best-loved American memoirs of an oversized family and the parents who held them together.

What do you get when you put twelve lively kids together with a father—a famous efficiency expert—who believes families can run like factories, and a mother who is his partner in everything except discipline? You get a hilarious tale of growing up that has made generations of kids and adults alike laugh along with the Gilbreths in Cheaper by the Dozen.

Translated into more than fifty-three languages and made into a classic film starring Clifton Webb and Myrna Loy — and a remake featuring Steve Martin, Bonnie Hunt, Hilary Duff, and Alyson Stoner — this memoir is a delightfully enduring story of family life at the turn of the twentieth century.

No growing pains have ever been more hilarious than those suffered loudly by the riotous Gilbreth clan. First there are a dozen red-haired, freckle-faced kids to contend with. Then there's Dad, a famous efficiency expert who believes a family can be run just like a factory. Finally there's Mother, his partner in everything except discipline. How they all survive such escapades as forgetting Frank Jr. in a roadside restaurant or going on a first date with Dad in the backseat or having their tonsils removed en masse will keep you in stitches. You can be sure they're not only cheaper, they're funnier by the dozen.

“Gay and lighthearted...One of the most amusing books.” - Chicago Sun-Times

“Always entertaining, occasionally hilarious, occasionally touching.... Sound Americana.” - Saturday Review of Literature

“Instructive, funny, and very readable.” - School Library Journal

“A touching family portrait that also happens to be very, very funny...its appeal is timeless.” - Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post

"There's fun and sentiment, appreciation and appraisal, and a good time is had by all." - Kirkus Reviews

"The book is the greatest possible tribute by children to parents, and a living proof that the Gilbreths, at any rate, had so many children they knew just what to do--to the immense enjoyment and pleasure of all their readers."  - The Christian Science Monitor

"One hilarious chapter follows another. . . . Cheaper by the Dozen is such an entertaining account of the growing Gilbreths that you wish it could have been written before 1924. The father of the Dozen would have enjoyed it." - New York Herald Tribune