Many readers will remember the title story, "Mama's Bank Account," which appeared in the Reader's Digest about a year ago. That was Kathryn Forbes's first published piece, and its appeal was so immediate that people everywhere wanted to know more about Mama's family, about Papa, Nels, Katrin, Dagmar, and Christine. Kathryn Forbes has now written a full, rounded story of the Americanization of this Norwegian family living in San Francisco, about Katrin and her part-time job in Mr. Schiller's Drug Store, about Dagmar and her tomcat "Uncle Elizabeth," about fierce, woman-hating Uncle Christ (Women! Phh!)—taking Mama's family through the many disasters and triumphs of childhood up to Christine's marriage and the birth of her baby.

Mama's Bank Account is, however, essentially Mama's story. Mama's goodness, humor, instinctive wisdom, her natural feeling for the right thing to do and say—these are the qualities that give this book its reality. Its warm values will make readers say, as Mama herself says when she is especially pleased, "Is good."

From the dust jacket