GIVE ME ONE WISH

About the Book

This is the story of a remarkable mother and daughter and their love as they make sense of life and their relationship in the face of a deadly disease. Jacquie Gordon cannot cure her daughter Christine’s cystic fibrosis, but she can teach her to follow life’s gifts so that she grows up fearless and ready to discover her place in the world. In high school Chris comes into her own. Her wit and style hide her illness and turn ordinary moments into events. In her senior year, fearful that her illness makes her unappealing, she finds a love that will touch the heart of every reader. At graduation, she wins the Headmaster’s Award for “educating the school in the most profound sense.” Christine leads us on a funny, heartbreaking, exhilarating path: Through rock and roll from the Sex Pistols to U2 … through slam dancing and Christian Fellowship … through getting fake I.D.’s and saying her prayers … through oxygen masks and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, through the Muppets and dyeing her hair purple, to singing with a band to catapulting herself onstage to kiss her favorite rock star. Defying the terror of her illness, she spends her life rejoicing. At college, eager for independence, illness forces her home in the very first semester. She returns to her mother’s care, not as a resentful teenager, but as a beautiful and fiery young woman determined to share with her mother what she has learned of life. Chris had everything except one thing: good health. And in her familiar hospital room, with her family by her side, she lost everything to cystic fibrosis three weeks after she turned twenty-one. You will not be able to put down this enthralling book that gives us a rare and intimate chronicle of a teenage girl growing up in the 70’s and 80’s. Replete with passages from Christine’s ten journals, Give Me One Wish tells the healing story of a beautiful girl who never stopped trying to live and who succeeds beyond all expectation. Readers of Give Me One Wish will never forget her rich journey and her wonderful victories. Listed among ALA’s Best Books for Young Adults 1988. “This is a terrific book, which I recommend highly. We at the Muppets all loved Christine—a beautiful and sensitive soul, a lover of life; but I never knew, until I read this book, just how brave and strong a fighter she was.” Jim Henson, The Muppets “Christine was, at last, so alive, and that is the quality that her mother so vividly portrays in this lovely memoir.” Frank Deford, author of Alex: The Life of a Child “This is a relentlessly realistic work about what it is like to live with and die from a chronic fatal illness. There is no pap, no sugar-coating; which is why it is a very good book for anyone who has the courage to face life and death squarely—as we must if we are to be wholly human, and if we are to see those glimpses of glory which lies only beyond the terror. There are many beautiful things about this book.” M. Scott Peck, M.D., author of The Road Less Traveled “… This book has class. Gordon’s style is elegant in its directness, with honesty and without sentimentality.” The New York Times “This is a beautiful book about a mother and daughter sharing all the problems of life—the normal everyday crises and an extraordinary battle against disease and growing together through them. It is for mothers and daughters, parents and teenagers everywhere.” Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey, author of bestseller, A Woman of Independent Means “Christine’s story is for all secondary students and adults. It carries a heavy emotional impact, but Christine is a person teens should know. Her spunk, her humor, her talent shine through Gordon’s superb narration and collection of photographs. A MUST FOR ALL SECONDARY LIBRARIES.” English Journal National Council of Teachers of English “An truly extraordinary book … a story—and a life—which simply cannot be forgotten.” Alice Hoffman, author of Illumination Night, Seventh Heaven, The River Ki

About the Author

Jacquie Gordon teaches creative writing at Manhattanville College and lives in Greenwich, Connecticut. She is also the author of Flanders Point, a novel.