Celestine Sibley tells us why mothers are always special. But don't expect to find only silver-haired saints and paragons of maternal virtue in this volume. The women (and sometimes men) Celestine writes about are honest people confronting everyday problems. They are frequently strong-willed, occasionally unorthodox, and generally free-spirited people who do the best they can with what's at hand. And they always do it with a tremendous sustaining power of love.

In Mothers Are Always Special, you'll meet people like Sarah McClendon Murphy, who opens her arms, her home, and her heart to hundreds of orphaned and abandoned children. You'll meet courageous Montell Purcell, who-when told her five-year-old daughter must lose her sight or her life-waits out the doctors and their diagnoses until a miracle occurs. You'll be introduced to Joe and Horace, an unlikely pair who correct, cajole, protect, and mother a brood of five boys after their parents' deaths, and who do so as lovingly as any woman could. And you'll never forget doe-like Cora Purefoy, the sixteen-year-old mountain woman who mistakenly sells her baby and then fights to get him back.

With such stories, Celestine Sibley reminds us that no matter what the age, sex, or background of the person who loves a child, Mothers Are Always Special.