This Book Series Got Me Hooked on Reading

Hello friends! Today, I will be sharing with you the one series that really got me hooked on reading and ruined me for the rest of my life.... Okay, it didn't ruin me because reading is a wonderful thing, but you get the point.

It all started with a gift...

Yes, a gift. I was probably 12, maybe 11, and my mom and I were at someone's house. Their children were all adults, so she was giving away their old books. Most of them were younger children's books like Cat in the Hat and Berenstein Bears. In the bad however, was a set of four volumes of the Sierra Jensen series by Robin Jones Gunn. Over the next several weeks/months, I read all twelve books (there were four volumes with three in each one). After I finished it, I noticed an ad in the back advertising the Christy Miller Series. Christy Miller was a side character in Sierra Jensen that I didn't know much about.

I must have mentioned it to my dad...

I don't remember exactly what happened, but I must have mentioned to my mom or dad that I wanted to read the Christy Miller series because one day when I went to my bedroom, I was shocked to discover not only the Christy Miller series sitting on a chair, but also three of the spin-off series that went with it! I ran to go tell my dad, and of course he said he got them for me. I thanked him profusely and started reading. I was immediately hooked!

It got me in a bit of trouble...

Yeah, I was a little too hooked. I was reading so much that my mom had to set a limit for how much I was allowed to read because I wasn't getting my chores done. I think it was an hour a day or something like that, though I often accidentally went over the limit.... Over several years (I wasn't a very fast reader at the time and read it off and on), I finished all the books. I was immediately sad that the series was over and wanted to read it again! I shared the books with my cousin who would visit occasionally, and she loved the books as well. We would constantly talk about them whenever she visited which was never often enough!

Then Christmas came around...

That Christmas (I was probably 14 at this point), she was coming over. I looked over at my stack of Christy Miller and Sierra Jensen books that we both loved and decided to give them to her. When she opened the three bags, or so they took up, she was so excited! It was then that I experienced the true joy of giving. After she left, though, I missed my books. So, I decided I would scour thrift stores and eBay and eventually collect the whole series again. That is where I am now, almost five years later.

We still talk about it...

Even though we have both moved on to other books and series we enjoy, we still occasionally talk about our favorite characters from Christy Miller. Although it technically started with the Sierra Jensen series, my love for reading officially started with Christy's story and the books that followed.

You should definitely check out this series! It is still a favorite of mine. I have yet to read many of the subseries and spin-offs that go with it. If you don't know where to start, start with Volume 1 of the Christy Miller collection below! When you finish, you'll be dying to read the rest of the series and the spin-offs, as I was. For a guide on which order the books should be read, click here for a website dedicated to this series!

Christy Is a Forever Friend

Summer Promise

Fourteen-year-old Christy Miller has the dream summer ahead of her in sun-kissed California, staying with her aunt and uncle at their beachfront home. Aunt Marti loves to shop, and those surfers are cute—especially Todd. Christy promised her parents she wouldn’t do anything she’d regret later, and some of her beach friends are a little wild. But Todd and his “God-Lover” friends are giving Christy a new image of all things eternal. Can this summer live up to its promise?

A Whisper and a Wish

Christy’s family has moved to California just in time for her sophomore year of high school. But they’re not in Newport Beach, where she spent the summer. Instead they’re an hour and a half away and Christy has to start all over making friends. Despite an embarrassing escapade at a slumber party, things are going pretty well...until some midnight fun leads to a trip to the police station. Does God really hear every whisper? Does He know our every wish? Then why is it so hard to know who your friends really are?

Yours Forever

Christy is back at Aunt Marti and Uncle Bob’s house on the beach for the entire week between Christmas and New Year’s...and Todd is in town, too! The cute surfer completely captured Christy’s heart last summer, and she’s eager to spend every possible minute with him. But soon Christy and her aunt are barely speaking, and it seems like all her friends are mad at her, too—including Todd! Is he hers or isn’t he? And why would God let things get so tangled?