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A review by eb00kie
Cheaper by the Dozen by Ernestine Gilbreth Carey, Frank B. Gilbreth
5.0
I loved this book.
A series of humorous and heartwarming anecdotes of two real-life efficiency experts and their twelve children.
The Education
You have to take your hat off for someone who managed to rear their kids and educate them at home to the point it’s described in the book. Maths, languages, Morse Code, others. Children have a mind for learning and inasmuch as anyone can do it, it is a wondrous gift to give — and receive.
My mother taught me to read at 3. Imagine 4 extra years of reading *o*
A different age
This was set at the beginning of the 20th century and published in 1948, so the characters, the values and the language all have a full foreign flavour of the past. I look at this and think how far we’ve come — but also how good it was for someone to raise twelve kids on two salaries.
The stories
Stories of growing up are their own genre. I’m not talking ‘coming-of-age’ or ‘Bildungsroman’, but the parent-child relationships are precious, strong, diverse and the stories are usually shared more within the family circle than outside of it and lost to time.
It all built up to a powerful emotional ending.
A series of humorous and heartwarming anecdotes of two real-life efficiency experts and their twelve children.
The Education
You have to take your hat off for someone who managed to rear their kids and educate them at home to the point it’s described in the book. Maths, languages, Morse Code, others. Children have a mind for learning and inasmuch as anyone can do it, it is a wondrous gift to give — and receive.
My mother taught me to read at 3. Imagine 4 extra years of reading *o*
A different age
This was set at the beginning of the 20th century and published in 1948, so the characters, the values and the language all have a full foreign flavour of the past. I look at this and think how far we’ve come — but also how good it was for someone to raise twelve kids on two salaries.
The stories
Stories of growing up are their own genre. I’m not talking ‘coming-of-age’ or ‘Bildungsroman’, but the parent-child relationships are precious, strong, diverse and the stories are usually shared more within the family circle than outside of it and lost to time.
It all built up to a powerful emotional ending.