Cheaper by the Dozen

By: Frank B. Gilbreth, Ernestine Gilbreth Carey

Narrated by: Dana Ivey

Length: 6 hrs and 4 mins

Publisher's summary

Count 'em - a dozen carrot topped, freckle-faced kids. Dad, a jovial optimist, successful inventor, and efficiency expert is fond of doing his work at home. Mom, a psychologist, is busy putting everything she knows into practice.

Listen along and discover the strange things that happen when Dad's experiments run awry…how Frank Jr. gets left behind at a roadside restaurant…how the whole clan has their tonsils out en masse…experience a first date with Dad in the backseat, or treeing a peeping Tom...

You can be sure they're not only cheaper, they're funnier by the dozen.

©1948 Frank B. Gilbreth, Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey (P)2000 Random House, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Lighthearted.... One of the most amusing books." ( The Chicago Sun)

Amazing

This book would be a life changer if your onto motion Study!!!! I’ve listened to this book 50 times and I still love it!!!!!!

Great book, a classic.

This is really a great book, even abridged.
Audio is a bit poor, mainly the music that is over the chapter start and ends, this drove us crazy, and we often missed some of the words.
Kids and adults loved this one.

Is this my favorite book ever?

this is the third time I've read this book. It's inspiring and laugh out loud funny. It makes me want get efficient, and have a big family.

The only downside here is the way the narrator says "Kaduga"... she totally missed what an old car horn sounds like. My grade 6 teacher nailed it when he read it to us: "Kaduuuuuuuugah!"

The music between chapters was way too long, but the book itself....one of the best of all time. excellent clean fun. do it.

Hilarious!

Someone recommended this book because it was funny and made them laugh. I completely agree. I laughed so hard on many occasions. Not okay for young kids to hear because there’s some cussing. However still pretty funny.

really good I love it but

it would have been better if they didn't the music at the beginning and at the end of each story

Great story, average narrator

I really like the story, it’s funny, it’s interesting, and it’s pleasant to listen to, but I think that the quality of the narration could be better.

Wonderful story, awful presentation

I LOVE this book, I read it for the first time as a child, along with its sequel and since then several books on Lillian Moller Gilbreth. The story is wonderful,warm, funny, all around entertaining and amusing, but this presentation is absolutely terrible, the reader’s voice is grating, her vocal changes between characters is poor and annoying all at once, rather like nails on a chalk board. There is a horrific music score that would be irritating on its own, but on top of that it continues far too long, drowning out the reader for large chunks of the chapters, I have read this book many many times, and despite this being an unabridged release, I caught several spots where sentences and events were skipped over. I hope that given the tone and similarity of the complaints with this book, that someone decides to redo the audio version, and to make a performance of the sequel.

Mostly good!

Great to listen to this classic. Narration was excellent but spoiled somewhat by annoying plinking piano music that was too loud, and too long and competed with the story.

Good Book, Annoying Music

The book is good, and the narrator does an amazing job, but there is discordant piano music at random parts of the story.
This book would have been much better if not for the music. Besides that, this book is a masterpiece.

Sweet, Maybe Bittersweet

This book has been a long time favorite of mine since I was in junior high. Now nearly 30 years later, I still enjoy this book and the characters are like family members to me. Each member of the family is so real that it’s almost like visiting your cousins house during the holidays. the accomplishments of this family are many and you will surely enjoy this book.