Cheaper by the Dozen

Frank Bunker Gilbreth Sr. is a motion-study engineer — the man who timed factory workers to shave seconds off a task — and he runs his own household in Montclair, New Jersey the same way, with twelve children as the subjects. He tries shaving with two razors at once and gives it up after cutting his throat, whistles the whole family into line and clicks the stopwatch he keeps in his vest pocket, and installs process charts in the bathrooms that every child old enough to write has to initial. His wife, Lillian, is his professional equal.

The book is written by two of the children, Frank Jr. and Ernestine, from the inside of that household — the line he used on strangers who asked how he fed them all gives the book its title. The best-known material is the running comedy of a man who cannot stop being an efficiency expert even at home, set against the real affection the children clearly have for him, and it ends, without warning, on Frank Sr.'s sudden death and on Lillian taking his chair at the head of the Family Council.

It's a memoir, and the films are not a reliable guide to it — the 1950 version stays close, while the later ones sharing the title tell an unrelated story about a different family. Readers who want the real Gilbreths, time-and-motion study included, need the book; the ending is a death, and the comic setup doesn't prepare you for it.