True life and make-believe.

I love this colourful little book Dragons, Deserts and Dreams containing poems and short stories, written and illustrated by Anne Frandi-Coory.

She has cleverly woven her poems into evocative, self-contained vignettes and portraits; brief episodes that are obviously dear to her heart. The short, true life stories, in beautiful prose, convey a passion and a vividness that make you feel as though you were right there when the events were actually happening. Readers will meet Ms Frandi-Coory’s paternal Lebanese grandparents in the hills of Lebanon and later in the story, join them on their sea voyage to Melbourne then on to New Zealand in ‘Immigration And The Promise’. On the other hand, the life of Ms Frandi-Coory’s maternal Italian great grandmother is very different. ‘Raffaela’s Last Dream’ is more of a drawn out nightmare which begins in Rome when Raffaela is 13 years old. In this short story, Raffaela is on her death bed surrounded by family, and as her long life flashes before her; readers are there to accompany her every step of the way.

The author also enters into a world of make-believe, giving readers a glimpse of her affinity with children and animals in her poems about childish imagination, the antics of animals and the value of Nature here on earth.

This is a book to treasure.

-Zita Barna