Thursday, June 18, 2009

Cheaper by the Dozen and Eight is Enough


A few weeks ago Janssen at Everyday Reading wrote about the book Cheaper by the Dozen, written by Frank Gilbreth, Jr., and his sister Ernestine Gilbreth Carey. Reading her post about how much she enjoyed having this book read aloud to her as a child made me long to read it myself. I own the book, but it is somewhere packed away in a box, so I quicky checked it out of the library. I am pretty sure that I never realized this is a non-fiction book, and up until yesterday had never read it. While I don't have the strong connection to it that Janssen does, I thoroughly enjoyed this book about a dozen children growing up in the early 1900s. As I was reading a similar book from my childhood came to mind: Eight is Enough by Tom Braden. While most people remember the TV show about a family of eight children, there was also a book written by Tom Braden on which the television show is based. When my hometown public library weeded that book I happily snatched it up and re-read it. My daughters seem completely intrigued by large families - we seem to watch Jon and Kate Plus Eight constantly (not for the controversy, but so we can see how a family with sextuplets lives) so both of these books I am saving up on my "future read alouds list" for my girls.
To find out more about the Gilbreth family, check out this website.

1 comment:

Peaceful Reader said...

I love that you own it; it is somewhere in your book-loving house!!
Thanks for the good review.