"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.