About the most exciting thing that happens to the Careys [in Rings Around Us] is that their son is born with a rudimentary tail and that their housekeeper, a follower of Father Divine, leaves the house in horror with the cry that the family is marked by sin. But to bear down heavily on a book as fluffy and as harmless and as easy-to-take as is "Rings Around Us" would be like using a shillelagh to spank a baby. Perhaps its failure lies in the fact that Mrs. Carey has only two children to her parents' twelve, or perhaps it is because a couple of generations have diluted the vinegary eccentricities of the elder Gilbreth into something as bland as Pablum.

Helen Beal Woodward, "Suburban Living," in The Saturday Review (copyright © 1956 by Saturday Review; all rights reserved; reprinted by permission), Vol. XXXIX, No. 17, April 28, 1956, p. 27.

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