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Christy Miller #9
Seventeen Wishes
Sixteen-year-old Christy goes to summer camp determined to pack her time with romantic memories.
151 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
8 people are currently reading
330 people want to read
About the author
Robin Jones Gunn
163 books2,643 followersROBIN JONES GUNN has written more than 100 books with over 6.5 million copies sold worldwide. Her Father Christmas books have been made into three Hallmark Christmas movies. The timeless Christy Miller series now continues in Christy & Todd: The College Years, Married Years, Baby Years, and the Haven Maker series. Robin's novels and non-fiction works include Before Your Tween Daughter Becomes a Woman, Victim of Grace, Praying for Your Future Husband, and Before You Meet Your Future Husband co-authored with Tricia Goyer. Her books have received multiple awards and are a favorite with book clubs and study groups. Many of Robin's books are in eBook, audiobook, large print, and foreign editions. Robin does a weekly Podcast called "Women Worth Knowing" with Cheryl Brodersen. Robin and her husband have a grown son and daughter and live in California.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 48 reviews
April 29, 2015
WARNING: I get a tiny bit sappy in this review. Enjoy, because IT'S NEVER HAPPENING AGAIN. I hope.
Christy spends a week as a camp counselor at a Christian summer camp and has a bit of a flirt with another counselor.
1.) Ginger eyes: Jones Gunn keeps describing this character over and over as having "ginger eyes." I know what "ginger" means re: hair - red hair. But the little girl can't possibly have red eyes, can she? Ginger root is a brown/golden color, perhaps the girl has tawny eyes? o.O Jones Gunn needs to give me some more clarification on this matter, or occasionally use a different description.
2.) Christy knows that this counselor, Jaeson, is a bit of a player-player. He's romancing a different girl every week (because new counselors come every week and the old ones leave). They never do anything - not even hold hands - but he takes her on a late-night picnic on the lake (super-romantic) and teaches her how to shoot a bow and arrow and how to canoe. This makes Christy feel a bit weird - she's developing a tiny bit of feelings for this guy but at the same time she knows it's all pretend. This is one of the reasons she doesn't let him kiss her - which is smart. The girls in Christy's cabin are gaga over Christy and Jaeson being a 'couple' and are constantly trying to get them together and teasing them.
3.) Children. Okay, let's say first that I'm a feminist and do not think all women should be mothers, or that all women like children, or something. BUT, now that I've established that, I think it is a real challenge to be around a little escuincle or escuincla and not start getting attached to the kid. For a man or a woman, it doesn't matter - little kids have something magical about them. They are sweet, innocent, cheeky, smartmouthed, intelligent, curious, and fearless. Even if you start out grumpy, like "I hate kids. I'm never having one," I challenge you to spend a month living with/caring for a kid and not developing feelings for said kid (and I don't mean like just eating dinner with the kid every night - I mean having to raise that kid up - even if it's only for a month). Kids win you over. They melt your heart, even when you don't want them to and deliberately try to hold on to your disgust for kids. (This is one of the reasons I enjoyed the film MALEFICENT so much.) And learning that you can love a kid, that kids aren't the monsters you thought they were DOESN'T MEAN that you have to have kids of your own one day - you can be an awesome aunt/uncle or great-aunt/great-uncle, or you can be the cool older cousin who lets the kids have second desserts. :) Children really are great treasures and a blessing in people's lives - but it doesn't have to be YOUR OWN KIDS - you can love your little niece, nephew, cousin, or great-niece and be an amazing friend and role model for them. And you can still pretend to be really grumpy about kids. :) Or insist that you STILL DON'T LIKE KIDS - but you do like this one, this special little one who thinks the world of you. :)
OKAY. ENOUGH MUSHY SAPPY GARBAGE. *blergh. I can't believe I let my fuzzy feelings come out like that. Just pretend that never happened.
Christy spends a week as a camp counselor at a Christian summer camp and has a bit of a flirt with another counselor.
1.) Ginger eyes: Jones Gunn keeps describing this character over and over as having "ginger eyes." I know what "ginger" means re: hair - red hair. But the little girl can't possibly have red eyes, can she? Ginger root is a brown/golden color, perhaps the girl has tawny eyes? o.O Jones Gunn needs to give me some more clarification on this matter, or occasionally use a different description.
2.) Christy knows that this counselor, Jaeson, is a bit of a player-player. He's romancing a different girl every week (because new counselors come every week and the old ones leave). They never do anything - not even hold hands - but he takes her on a late-night picnic on the lake (super-romantic) and teaches her how to shoot a bow and arrow and how to canoe. This makes Christy feel a bit weird - she's developing a tiny bit of feelings for this guy but at the same time she knows it's all pretend. This is one of the reasons she doesn't let him kiss her - which is smart. The girls in Christy's cabin are gaga over Christy and Jaeson being a 'couple' and are constantly trying to get them together and teasing them.
3.) Children. Okay, let's say first that I'm a feminist and do not think all women should be mothers, or that all women like children, or something. BUT, now that I've established that, I think it is a real challenge to be around a little escuincle or escuincla and not start getting attached to the kid. For a man or a woman, it doesn't matter - little kids have something magical about them. They are sweet, innocent, cheeky, smartmouthed, intelligent, curious, and fearless. Even if you start out grumpy, like "I hate kids. I'm never having one," I challenge you to spend a month living with/caring for a kid and not developing feelings for said kid (and I don't mean like just eating dinner with the kid every night - I mean having to raise that kid up - even if it's only for a month). Kids win you over. They melt your heart, even when you don't want them to and deliberately try to hold on to your disgust for kids. (This is one of the reasons I enjoyed the film MALEFICENT so much.) And learning that you can love a kid, that kids aren't the monsters you thought they were DOESN'T MEAN that you have to have kids of your own one day - you can be an awesome aunt/uncle or great-aunt/great-uncle, or you can be the cool older cousin who lets the kids have second desserts. :) Children really are great treasures and a blessing in people's lives - but it doesn't have to be YOUR OWN KIDS - you can love your little niece, nephew, cousin, or great-niece and be an amazing friend and role model for them. And you can still pretend to be really grumpy about kids. :) Or insist that you STILL DON'T LIKE KIDS - but you do like this one, this special little one who thinks the world of you. :)
OKAY. ENOUGH MUSHY SAPPY GARBAGE. *blergh. I can't believe I let my fuzzy feelings come out like that. Just pretend that never happened.
December 29, 2021
“You can never love too much.” << best part of the entire book, by far.
February 6, 2017
Seventeen Wishes by Robin Jones Gunn is the ninth book in the Christy Miller series.
In this book, Christy volunteers to be a counselor through her church at Summer camp (Camp Wildwood) with her best friend Katie. but at the last minute Katie backs out, so Christy is all alone babysitting a bunch of rowdy fifth-grade girls.
And can I just say, this book is SO much like volunteering at Vacation Bible School, except it's both boys and girls in a group and you don't stay overnight. The kids are always running around. The tip that Jessica, another counselor, gave to Christy: "You can never love too much," is SO true when it comes to watching kids, especially at activities like Summer camp. The only thing I couldn't relate to was the "romance". LOL that's funny.
Sorry, I kind of went off on a rabbit trail there. ANYWAY. Back to the book.
I felt Jaeson was a little unnecessary overall. He just weirded me out the entire book, tbh. Like what are your intentions here dude? And Christy for Pete's sake what are you doing? You've got Todd, every girl's dream boyfriend, and you are off frolicing with this Jaeson fellow??? ????
I feel like he was literally just to add a "romantic" aspect to the book. It would have been a great book even if Jaeson was just another guy friend for Christy.
Four stars out of five. Good book, and I could relate to it. Like a lot. XD
In this book, Christy volunteers to be a counselor through her church at Summer camp (Camp Wildwood) with her best friend Katie. but at the last minute Katie backs out, so Christy is all alone babysitting a bunch of rowdy fifth-grade girls.
And can I just say, this book is SO much like volunteering at Vacation Bible School, except it's both boys and girls in a group and you don't stay overnight. The kids are always running around. The tip that Jessica, another counselor, gave to Christy: "You can never love too much," is SO true when it comes to watching kids, especially at activities like Summer camp. The only thing I couldn't relate to was the "romance". LOL that's funny.
Sorry, I kind of went off on a rabbit trail there. ANYWAY. Back to the book.
I felt Jaeson was a little unnecessary overall. He just weirded me out the entire book, tbh. Like what are your intentions here dude? And Christy for Pete's sake what are you doing? You've got Todd, every girl's dream boyfriend, and you are off frolicing with this Jaeson fellow??? ????
I feel like he was literally just to add a "romantic" aspect to the book. It would have been a great book even if Jaeson was just another guy friend for Christy.
Four stars out of five. Good book, and I could relate to it. Like a lot. XD
July 23, 2025
Jaeson got weird... but it was a great ending-- 4.5 stars!!
July 15, 2025
Some reread thoughts as an adult (2024):
I think it was obligatory in the 80s/90s/00s for all YA series to have a summer camp installment. I thought this one most realistic to my own summer camp experiences as a young person, though I was never a counselor. I did think it odd that the high school counselors were entirely responsible for the groups of children. When I was at church camp as a 5th/6th grader there was always an adult in charge of the cabin in addition to any teenage counselors. Just my experience.
I remember thinking that Christy’s “summer romance“ was so very sweet and innocent when I read this as a teen, and I still think so, though girl certainly gets all the breaks. She can’t turn around without some good looking guy interested in her. I guess that’s why she’s the main character.
As far as continuity, and this is a bit of a stretch:
In this book Christy talks about having not been to camp since she was a young girl in Wisconsin. When these books were first published in the 90s there were a handful of short story contests in Brio magazine in which RJG printed the beginning of a Christy story and then readers wrote in with a conclusion and the winning entry was printed in a later issue. The July 1992 issue features a short story in which 16 year old Christy is a camper at Hume Lake, the summer camp referenced in A Whisper and a Wish.
December 2007 reread.
July 2011 reread.
June 2019 reread, audiobook.
December 2020 reread, audiobook.
April 2024 reread, audiobook.
I think it was obligatory in the 80s/90s/00s for all YA series to have a summer camp installment. I thought this one most realistic to my own summer camp experiences as a young person, though I was never a counselor. I did think it odd that the high school counselors were entirely responsible for the groups of children. When I was at church camp as a 5th/6th grader there was always an adult in charge of the cabin in addition to any teenage counselors. Just my experience.
I remember thinking that Christy’s “summer romance“ was so very sweet and innocent when I read this as a teen, and I still think so, though girl certainly gets all the breaks. She can’t turn around without some good looking guy interested in her. I guess that’s why she’s the main character.
As far as continuity, and this is a bit of a stretch:
In this book Christy talks about having not been to camp since she was a young girl in Wisconsin. When these books were first published in the 90s there were a handful of short story contests in Brio magazine in which RJG printed the beginning of a Christy story and then readers wrote in with a conclusion and the winning entry was printed in a later issue. The July 1992 issue features a short story in which 16 year old Christy is a camper at Hume Lake, the summer camp referenced in A Whisper and a Wish.
December 2007 reread.
July 2011 reread.
June 2019 reread, audiobook.
December 2020 reread, audiobook.
April 2024 reread, audiobook.
August 31, 2021
Wow! What a book! This is probably my favorite so far. It brought back all of my favorite memories at camp. It was also nice to get a little break from Christy's obsession with Todd and Rick. I know she liked Jaeson, but it wasn't obsessive. I really enjoyed the last chapter. Can't wait to see what happens next.
December 21, 2018
The endings are always my favourite parts because they make me smile and tingle with all the feels!
Read
December 2, 2022oh this was the stupidest one yet
January 26, 2023
Okay so I'm agreeing with Kyra now and I think I'm gonna stop reading the series at this point. Maybe one day I'll go back to it, but for now I kind of want to read something different that isn't quite so cringey. As much as I enjoyed the ones I did read (for the most part anyway 😅), I'm going to set them aside now. They had really good messages of Christianity, friendship, forgiveness and love and I thought that that was really well done. But yeah some passages were just plain silly sounding or Christy's behaviour just not really making sense...
But still a good series for a young Christian woman to read (or maybe a younger girl) that are faith-filled!
But still a good series for a young Christian woman to read (or maybe a younger girl) that are faith-filled!
March 30, 2023
In this book Katie signed Christy and her up for camp. Christy thought they were going to be attending as campers, but realized after Katie's parents made her not do it it was for counselors. She's not looking forward to the trip, but doesn't want to back out too and leave them in need.
There was a bit of a camp romance
The kids were sweet once Christy got used to being there.
There was a bit of a camp romance
The kids were sweet once Christy got used to being there.
March 9, 2023
"If we spend all of today thinking about tomorrow, today will be gone, and we will have missed it."
Seventeen Wishes had been my least favorite book in this reread of the Christy Miller series so far. Not sure exactly why, but I think it was because the story mainly takes place with Christy being a camp counselor and I just found that storyline boring. I'm more interested in her relationship with Todd and friendships, so when we finally got to the ending,
Seventeen Wishes had been my least favorite book in this reread of the Christy Miller series so far. Not sure exactly why, but I think it was because the story mainly takes place with Christy being a camp counselor and I just found that storyline boring. I'm more interested in her relationship with Todd and friendships, so when we finally got to the ending,
June 14, 2021
I thoroughly enjoyed this one , despite the addition of Jacen as a sort of love interest . I think this is one of my favorites so far . A lot of other people said they loved Chritsy's interactions with the girls at camp , and I'd have to agree . It reminds me of my own days at camp . I feel like this is such a realistic picture of camp and children at that age . I really don't get the reviews complaining about how
" Robin Jones Gunn has clearly never met any children " . All of the girls in Christy's cabin were very distinct ,and realistic portrayals of 11 year olds .
August 16, 2023
Rereading all 30+ books before Becoming Us is published ♡♡♡ Christy & the forever friends were my first fictional friends that I ever made. I feel as if they are real, I literally see them in crowds of people and that I could hang out with them. Oh to be 17, again.
May 3, 2015
Todd continues to annoy me. I'm not real clear on this whole defrauding concept. Is this Puritan times?
August 8, 2019
I had a lot of mixed feelings while reading this book. Christy is amazing, but sometimes her decisions can drive me crazy. I know it’s her story but I am so deep into the series that I feel it’s mine too! I love the Christy and Todd story and I get nervous every time she does something that could change it. You can imagine how I felt when she had a summer camp crush on Jaeson, a fellow summer camp counselor. In contrast, she can also be so surprising and an awesome leader. I thought it was amazing how Christy handled the surprise of being a camp counselor instead of a camper. I doubt I could have enough patience to take care of fifth-grade girls for a week and on top of that, try to lead them to God. This book had a lot of great added humor brought by the summer camp kids and Christy’s own clumsiness. The ending of this book gave me a lot of hope and anticipation for the next one. This book brings up the topic of kissing a lot, but no detail is given about it. This book is appropriate for kids 11 and up.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 14, 2021
Christy is volunteered by Katie to be a counselor at a summer camp for a week. While there, Christy is put in charge of a group of girls in her cabin and participates in various camp activities. Christy also wants the girls to give their hearts to Jesus as she had done, but even that doesn't seem to be going as she expects. Jason, a fellow counselor, also seems to be giving her lots of attention.
Out of the books covering Christy's junior year of high school, this one was my favorite. The setting was different and it was nice to see Christy doing other activities that didn't involve boys all the time (aside from the little romance between her and Jason).
Out of the books covering Christy's junior year of high school, this one was my favorite. The setting was different and it was nice to see Christy doing other activities that didn't involve boys all the time (aside from the little romance between her and Jason).
October 16, 2018
It was alright. Not my favorite Christy Miller book, but certainly not the worst of them. I did like Christy’s relationships with the girls in her cabin, and of course Todd and Doug just make me smile anytime they show up. Jaeson was too pushy and didn’t feel like a necessary character; I felt his only role was to trick us readers into thinking Todd and Christy aren’t going to end up together. But I’m sure they are. That’s my hope, anyway. 😉 This book felt more like filler, but again, it wasn’t terrible. Onto the next one!
May 9, 2022
This series has my literal heart. This is the first series that went on my bookshelf and will remain on my favorite shelf. I re-read it at least once a year and every time it's a page turner, hard to put down, type of book. It creates such mazing imagery that as I read I loose focus of words on a page, but the image in my mind. I LOVE this series and recommend this to teens, or even YA.
November 8, 2023
I'm always up for a good camp story. It was a little strange for Christy to be away from all the other familiar characters for most of this book, and it was odd for her to be crushing on someone other than Todd, but mostly I enjoyed it. I was also disappointed that she ditched her girls at a time that she really should have been present, in order to hang out with her camp crush.
February 22, 2025
This book touched me in a way that i hadn’t expected it to.
I volunteer for a ton of VBS camps during the summer and work for various bible studies babysitting the kiddos so I knew exactly how Christy felt trying to battle with the kids. But I also understood how Christy felt when she was trying to get the kids to become christians.
I volunteer for a ton of VBS camps during the summer and work for various bible studies babysitting the kiddos so I knew exactly how Christy felt trying to battle with the kids. But I also understood how Christy felt when she was trying to get the kids to become christians.
March 23, 2025
Christy is always getting herself into some crazy situations… This book definitely felt more light-hearted and carefree. She wasn’t so focused on boys, but she wasn’t entirely unfocused on boys. Lol There are definitely things about her friendships that I find odd, but I guess everyone has their own journey!
May 4, 2022
Christy goes to camp in this book! I enjoyed the interaction she had with the girls. The descriptions made me feel like I was right there with them. As this series progresses I have enjoyed seeing Christy mature.
June 30, 2020
Summer romance, sharing faith as camp counselor.
September 30, 2021
“If we spend all of today thinking about tomorrow, today will be gone, and we will have missed it.”
January 17, 2023
3.25 stars
July 11, 2023
"I like this book because first of all I love the Christy Miller series. My favorite part of this book is the camp part. I was also kind of surprised at the end of the book." -Cadee, age 11
July 18, 2023
😭😭😭😭why is this so good!!!!!!!!!
September 13, 2023
Not bad, little bit cheesy.
January 10, 2024
this is one of my least favorites just because over half of the book is spent without Christy’s friends, but i had a good time.
March 27, 2024
This one isn't my favorite but it is still so good to listen to Christy learning more about life and the Lord!
Displaying 1 - 30 of 48 reviews