One Gilbreth is no funnier than one normally bright person of any parentage, it may be presumed, but when the eleven Gilbreth youngsters and their mother were assembled under one roof they were good for a comic chapter at every turn of family life. The proof is in the reading of ["Belles on Their Toes." This sequel to "Cheaper by the Dozen"] … also proves what a pair of deft story-tellers the two writing members of the Gilbreth eleven are….

This is good light stuff, but there is a hint of something more in the book. When old Tom dies, the authors say:

It could be said that Tom was a man who never amounted to much. By some standards, perhaps, he wasn't even a very good man. He swore a good deal, and in later years he drank more than he should have. But the day he died...