7In 1942, a bewildered six-year-old Joan Crabb and her siblings find themselves wards of the Loyal True Blue and Orange Orphanage in Richmond Hill, Ontario. For seven challenging years, they support one another through the strong bonds of familial love, until at the age of thirteen, Joan and the other Crabb children are taken in by Bill and Grace, a warm and welcoming farm couple, who model and teach the unconditional love of parents. These invaluable life lessons are tested, however, when Joan and her siblings are blindsided, plucked away from Bill and Grace, and taken to Nova Scotia, into the custody of the biological father they have never known.

After Joan falls in love and begins her own ever-increasing family in Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia, it is apparent that her childhood has gifted her with a huge heart for children in need of a mother's love. She devotes her life to her many biological, adopted and foster children, but at the heart of Joan's legacy lies a unique bond with a beautiful special-needs child-Chrissy.

Written by a loving daughter, Joanie delivers a lively, entertaining, and incredibly moving account of the joys, triumphs, and tragedies of a life that some might see as ordinary; revealing how incredibly and completely extraordinary it truly was.