Ever have one of those days where you can't find anything to read? My bookshelves are looking quite bare these days. I've read most of my books, and right now I'm kind of on a hiatus from buying any (although I do troll Amazon.com each day in search of cheap or discounted ebooks). But this one has been on my shelf as a throwback to when I was a little kid and my mom read it to me. It's a quick read, and one I love because of the background.
My mother grew up in a very large family. My grandparents had nine children, two boys and seven girls, and adopted another girl late in life. My mother was number seven of the ten. When we were growing up, my sister and I were fascinated by the stories she told about growing up in a big family with so many kids. And my mom, who read to us a lot, read us the stories of the Gilbreth family -- a husband and wife engineering team who had a dozen children, six boys and six girls. Two of the children went on to write a book series about their lives. The first was called Cheaper By the Dozen (which is nothing like the Steve Martin knockoff film), and featured mainly stories from the early years, as each of the children were born, and life with both parents.
The sequel, Belles On Their Toes, begins in 1924, after "Dad", Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Sr., has passed away. In order to keep the huge family together, their mother, Lillian Moller Gilbreth, an engineer in her own right, must work hard to keep her husband's business afloat. Left alone with the eldest girl -- Anne, age 18 -- in charge, the children must work together, save their pennies, and do their best to make ends meet so that the family won't be divided. Despite the tremendous odds stacked against her, Lillian is determined to fulfill her husband's dream of putting every single one of the dozen children through college. She refuses to listen to the naysayers who tell her that a woman can't run a business, the family won't survive on its own, and she'll never manage to send them all to school. Through a series of vignettes, the authors (daughter Ernestine and son Frank Jr.) tell the humorous stories of making ends meet and growing up in a riotous family, while honoring their mother and giving credit where it's so due.
The major character who is sorely missed in Belles is Frank Sr., who provided a lot of the comedy in Dozen. But Belles is meant to honor Lillian, and really gives her a chance to shine, and her own personality to show through. Where Frank ran the household like a factory (efficiency charts, regimentation, etc), Lillian (as a psychologist) struggled to treat her children as individuals, and insisted that they remain so. It shows -- Belles highlights the children individually, with their own stories and memories, rather than referring to "the dozen." There is much more stressing on the individuality, especially of the oldest and youngest children. The ones in the middle, such as Frank Jr., Lillian, and Bill, don't seem to have a big part in the sequel -- unfortunate, since Bill was one of my favorite characters in Dozen.
Still, it's a cute book, and funny (though I know a lot of reviewers complain that they have trouble relating, since the book is set almost 80 years ago). And I still can't read it without thinking of my mom :)
Rating: *** and 1/2
No comments:
Post a Comment