Many Hands Make Light Work

<i>Many Hands Make Light Work</i> is the rollicking true story of a family of nine children growing up in the college town of Ames Iowa in the '60s and '70s. Inspiring full of surprises and laugh-out-loud funny this utterly unique family champions diversity and inclusion long before such concepts become cultural flashpoints. Cheryl and her siblings are the offspring of an eccentric professor father and unflappable mother. Mindful of their ever-expanding family's need for cash her parents begin acquiring tumbledown houses in campus-town to renovate and rent. Dad who changes out of his suit and tie into a carpenter's battered white overalls like Clark Kent into Superman is supremely confident his offspring can do anything whether he's there or not. Mom an organizational genius disguised as a housewife manages nine children so deftly that she finds the time--and heart--to take in student boarders who stir their own offbeat personalities into this unconventional household. The kids meanwhile pour concrete paint houses and at odd moments break into song because instead of complaining they sing as they work like a von Trapp family in painters caps. Free-wheeling and contagiously cheerful <i>Many Hands Make Light Work</i> is a winsome memoir of a Heartland childhood unlike any other.