[Cheaper by the Dozen] is a boisterous, breezy family chronicle, the true story—the more incredible for being true—of how an inventive and immensely capacious American engineer, Frank Bunker Gilbreth by name, and his game and surprisingly durable wife, Lillian Moller Gilbreth, raised their twelve children and kept unceasingly on the go….

I don't question the veracity of [the events in the book]; I just wish it sounded more like life. The story would be better were there more landmarks in it of time and place by which the reader could steer. Of them all, Mother alone has the identifying touch, and when Mother goes swimming at Nantucket, we see her and for a time are back in the land of the plausible.

Edward Weeks, "The Atlantic Bookshelf: 'Cheaper by the Dozen'," in The Atlantic Monthly (copyright © 1949, by The Atlantic Monthly Company, Boston, Mass.; reprinted with permission...