“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 - now a Disney+ movie starring Gabrielle Union and Zach Braff. 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 numerous films over the years — including a classic film starring Myrna Loy and a cult favorite with Steve Martin, Hilary Duff, and Alyson Stoner — this memoir is a delightfully enduring story of family life at the turn of the twentieth century. “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 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, Cheaper by the Dozen is a delightfully enduring story of family life at the turn of the 20th century. Frank B. Gilbreth Jr. was born in 1911 in Plainfield, New Jersey, and graduated from the University of Michigan. He became a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy during World War II and received a Bronze Star and Air Medal. In 1947, he joined the staff of what is now the Post and Courier in Charleston, South Carolina. A columnist and reporter, he authored and coauthored several books, including Belles on Their Toes (with Ernestine Gilbreth Carey), How to Be a Father , and Time Out for Happiness . In 1950, he was corecipient (with his sister) of the French International Humor Award for Cheaper by the Dozen . He died in 2001. Ernestine Gilbreth Carey was born in 1908 in New York City and graduated as an English major from Smith College. In 1930, soon after graduation, she began fourteen years of New York City department store buying and management. Meanwhile, she married and had two children. A writer and lecturer, she has authored and coauthored seven books, including Belles on Their Toes (with Frank Gilbreth Jr.), Jumping jupiter , Rings Around Us , and Giddy Moment . In 1950 she was corecipient (with her brother) of the French International Humor Award for Cheaper by the Dozen . She died in 2006. Excerpt Chapter One Whistles and Shaving Bristles Dad was a tall man, with a large head, jowls, and a Herbert Hoover collar. He was no longer slim; he had passed the two-hundred-pound mark during his early thirties, and left it so far behind that there were times when he had to resort to railway baggage scales to ascertain his displacement. But he carried himself with the self-assurance of a successful gentleman who was proud of his wife, proud of his family, and proud of his business accomplishments. Dad had enough gall to be divided into three parts, and the ability and poise to backstop the front he placed before the world. He'd walk into a factory like the Zeiss works in Germany or the Pierce Arrow plant in this country and announce that he could speed up production by one-fourth. He'd do it, too. One reason he had so many children - there were twelve of us - was that he was convinced anything he and Mother teamed up on was sure to be a success. Dad always practiced what he preached, and it was just about impossible to tell where his scientific management company ended and his family life began. His office was always full of children, and he often took two or three of us,