Dragonfly Dreams
“If a dragonfly lands on you, it means change is coming.
You better watch your dreams, Nini.”
Living in China when the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor, Nini and her family don’t realize that their world is about to collapse. Nini and her best friend Chiyoko are on their way home from school when they are stopped by Japanese soldiers and forced to step aside for a car with a mysterious passenger. Uncertain of what is happening, they create a secret hiding place to leave messages for each other.
Nini’s family is soon forced into hiding to protect her American mother from being arrested and sent to an internment camp. When the family situation becomes desperate amid circumstances of hunger, disease, and quarantine, Nini is the only one who can make the dangerous journey across the war-torn city to save her family and find her best friend.
Not since Empire of the Sun has a book captured the drama of Westerners trapped in China during World War II.
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Eleanor McCallie Cooper is drawn by her deep Southern roots to write stories that have been hidden or forgotten. She chronicles families on the edge of traumatic historical events portending personal and social turmoil, and previously co-authored Grace: An American Woman's Forty Years in China, 1934-74 with William Liu.
Eleanor earned a doctorate in education from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga with a focus on community learning and leadership. Her work as a community coach focuses on civic engagement and community-wide visioning. Eleanor lived in Japan for two years and has traveled in Korea, China, India, and many European countries. She lived in New York and San Francisco before returning to her hometown of Chattanooga, Tennessee.