Belles on their Toes
Frank Bunker Gilbreth and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey
After the patriarch’s death, the dozen surviving members of the Gilbreth clan must learn how to get along with Mother away, and a budget of $600 for several months. Then there is a bout of chickenpox which can be cured by only one The blurb is quite misleading, suggesting that the Gilbreth children set up an egg farm to sell eggs. If this does occur, it’s not discussed in the novel. They do collect manure from the streets though!
This sequel to Cheaper by the Dozen simply didn’t hold as many good ‘tips’ on motion study as did the first one. It’s a bit more entertaining perhaps and catalogues what older society times thought of a woman teaching motion study to engineering men.
I think I’d like a motion study kitchen! Imagine the inefficiencies that have crept into smaller businesses from the loss of people like the Gilbreths from the world. My partner notices these inefficiencies every day in her workplace. Ah, for simpler times.
Do I give this stars? For GoodReads, I have to, and so there I’ll give it 5 stars. But here, it’s non-fiction, so I’m just going to recommend it as a good, oldfashioned non-fiction that illustrates what can happen in a big family after a father dies.
I’m not exactly certain what to say about this book. It looks quite unflinchingly at the conditions at some chicken and pig primary production farms, but also shows the positive side of eating meat! I felt like I was wandering around the English countryside with Louise the whole way, which was fascinating just in itself.
So you might think I have given away the whole novel with my opening paragraph – but in fact, you know all of that information almost from just reading the blurb and reading the first chapter. That alone would have killed the novel for me.
Honestly, I think if I had paid for it, I would be asking for my money back. I’m not even certain it’s good enough to give as a present. There are heaps of little books like this that claim to change your life for you by just a little message here and there, and I’m not buying it.
The first half of the novel kept me enthralled, but this petered out in the second half. I was fascinated by the gymnastics, not by the politics. In the end, I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to take away from the novel. Translated from French, I think this novel may have lost some of its charm.
As long as you can get past the extreme amounts of explicit swearing in the prologue and first chapter, you’ll be golden for reading this novel. If that sort of thing bothers you, I advise skipping straight ahead. I put the book down and tried to take a nap instead of keeping reading at that point. Anyway, I persevered and it got better from there.
This book was actually enjoyable. I was hesitant. As I say though, Reed is from the people angle. After his son’s accident, he’s one of the people who have pushed forward from the ground up to make a difference in politics to change ordinary people’s lives. As a geneticist, this gets into all sorts of ethical ideas and messes, some of which are discussed here.
What I loved was that the blending of fact and fiction made me feel at home in the novel. I didn’t object that I never really understood everything behind Lord’s motives. I didn’t mind that there was no happy ending.
As always, I preferred the personal stories rather than the advice given in this novel. I think if you are going for a more ‘traditional’ career (not a university and teaching focussed career like mine) this novel is going to be perfect for you. I’d choose it as a gift for someone just starting out at their first job.
This novel covers only part of Neil’s journey! It is astounding how much he has travelled on his trusty bike. I can’t believe it, but then I think of other people who have cycled around the exterior of Australia and straight across the middle. Still though, its amazing what one man on a tiny bike can do if he is determined.