Mama's Girl

On the streets of Brooklyn in the 1970s Veronica Chambers mastered the whirling helixes of a double-dutch jump rope with the same finesse she brought to her schoolwork her often troubled family life and the demands of being overachieving and underprivileged. Her mothera Panamanian immigrantwas too often overwhelmed by the task of raising Veronica and her difficult younger brother on her meager secretary''s salary to applaud her daughter''s achievements. From an early age Veronica understood that the best she could do for her mother was to be a perfect childto rewrite her Christmas wish lists to her mother''s budget to look after her brother to get by on her own.Though her mother seemed to bear out the adage that black women raise their daughters and mother their sons Veronica never stopped trying to do more do better do it all. And now as a successful young woman who''s achieved more than her mother dared hope for her she looks back on theirmother-daughter bond.The critically acclaimed Mama''s Girl is a moving startlingly honest memoirin which Chambersshares some important truths about what we all really want from our mothersand what we can give in return.