Customer Reviews

Daughter of Venice

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Fourteen-year-old Donata is fortunate to be the daughter of a noble family. However being the daughter of a respective family has its problems for headstrong Donata. She is protected from the outside world and all noble's daughter will not get an education. Being not the oldest daughter, Donata will not marry either, her destiny is to confined in a covent for the rest of her life. But because she has a twin sister Laura, Donata clings onto the hope that her father might find a husband for both of them. When her hopes are dashed, Donata comes up with the plan to see Venice, the Venice outside of her palazzo, before she is shut away forever. Her choice will bring many changes to her family and will alter many people's lives, including her own.

This was a wonderful historical fiction book by Donna Jo Napoli seen through the eyes of a remarkable girl with big dreams of the future. I read this book in one sitting and it was way better than I ever dreamed it would be. It illustrates perfectly the hopes and aspirations of a girl who wants to see the outside world---a world she has never known.

this is a great book! the beginning is a little boring. the book also has very BIG words that you would have to look up. it is very interesting and it tells about how life was back then. if you like historical fiction then you'll love this book.

I checked a book out by Donna Jo Napoli by this same author-Donna Jo Napoli-called Sirena and I loved it so much that I decided to read this books when I saw it in a local bookstore. This book starts out slow but starts to progress and build up until at the end a ton of action erupts and a great and unexpected ending comes around. The story is about Donata- a 14 year old daughter of a rich Venetian merchant.She grows up secluded in the family's palazzo-away from the real world, education, learning, and everyhting that has to do with men.However, as she is gettin golder her mother is planning to wed away some of her daughters, the rest to be sent away to a convent-one of the brides being the beautiful Donata.Before it is too late and Donata is kept in a house with children forever, she decides to experience the Venice thta her brothers and all men in her family have ever known. Dusguising herself as a boy and having hert twin sister Laara act as her while she is gone, Donata visits the vast city. She even befriends a Jewish man who runs a newspaper-and decides to be an employee and learn to write and read as she earns money.Everyday she goes out to the Jewish ghetto and every night she returns home in time for dinner. However, the story isn't all fun and adventure. Donata's mother thinks that Donata is doing all of the work Laura is doing(Laura is doing her chores and Donata's).So, Donata is to be amrried when Laura deserves it.After taking lessons with her brothers from a private tutor, learning to write at a newspaper, and becoming more educated thna any other girl in her family-Donata hatches a plan-a plan that could destroy her family and have them cast out of Venice.But Donata does it for love of her sister, Laura. I really enjoyed this book and it really used a lot of helpful Italian, showed you Italian history, and told a story that is truly genuine and well thought up and written. I recommend this book to all historical fiction fans.

I also reccomend-Dear America, Royal Diaries, Young Royals, all of Donna Jo Napoli's books-especially Sirena and Beast

Daughter of Venice
Donna Jo Napoli

Daughter of Venice is an enjoyable book filled with adventure, love, and subtly slipped in facts along the way. The content would mostly be classified as historical fiction; since the book also includes heartbreak, family life, and sneaking out, this would also be a good selection for those who like to read realistic fiction. This story is the type of thing my friends and I daydream about, being a young girl and rebelling against the crowd. It's enough to make any girl stay up late just to finish reading.
Donata Mocenigo, a fourteen year old girl, has her place as the second daughter of a noble family in Venice, Italy. She also shares her spot as the second oldest daughter with her identical twin, Laura. Donata is not able to see the city in which she lives because it is considered unsafe and improper. The only time Donata is allowed outside the palazzo is when she and others in her family are going to other noble family's palazzos or to church. (A palazzo is a fortress-like, three-story home from the Italian Renaissance.) When she had the chance to go outside her home, Donata was always forced to go straight to the destination on gondola and back.
She devises a plan to travel outside of the palazzo and explore Venice. She wants to look like a boy to have the rights of a boy so she uses a fisher boy's clothes, trading the boy with a small dress from her sister. On her first outing in Venice, Donata has no shoes and no bareta to hide her hair. She goes straight down the road from her home until she runs into a beggar boy. He threatens her and spits in her face. Donata stands out because although she is wearing a fisher boy's clothes, noble girls cover their faces and skin to keep it white so she is much too white to be a fisher boy who spends the day in the sun. After the beggar boy leaves her, Donata continues walking along and meets a Jewish man by the name of Noé. He sells her shoes, but she has no money on hand so she has to come back to repay him. Donata ends up working for a month copying handbills to pay off the debt. Noé becomes a very good friend of Donata.
Laura and Donata get along very well and love each other a lot, but being twins has its downsides. In noble families, only certain children are able to marry because keep the wealth in the family is very important to noble families because it means maintaining power. Donata has many brothers and many sisters. Only one brother may marry but the number of girls with the permission to marry is not decided by their father until very late in the book. Donata has an older sister that automatically may marry. Laura and Donata both want to marry very badly, but neither know if they will be able to. Tempting as it is, I can't say anything more about the book; that would spoil it.
Donna Jo Napoli's writing is capturing and descriptive, but does not seem like anything special. It seems like the more talented people in my class would be able to write just as Napoli does. The author's writing would have been a larger conflict for me, had the plot been any worse, but it proved to be a very intriguing story so the matter of her writing didn't impose on me too much.
I would rate this book a four out of five because although the plot was very interesting, the book seemed too unchallenging. The vocabulary wasn't anything extraordinary, excluding what was said in languages other than English.

The color and fascination of 16th-century Venice come to life in this beautifully written novel of a young girl's determination to pursue a career denied women of her time. Donata's unflinching determination to pursue her dream takes her, and the reader, on a daring adventure filled with drama and suspense.

I could hardly put this book down, so absorbed did it keep me from beginning to end. And although this is a young adult novel, I would recommend it for readers of any age who are interested in the history and culture of Venice.

Sarah Bruce Kelly
Author of THE RED PRIEST'S ANNINA

I enjoy reading young adult historical fiction and learned so much from this book. I found the ending quite satisfying, and was especially moved by the Author's Note which dedicated this novel to the spirit of Elena Piscopia - the first woman ever to be awarded a doctoral degree, in 1678.

This book made me appreciate that when a woman stands out in history, it speaks highly of her determined nature and ability not only to achieve, but to use her wits and cleverness to rise above and beyond societal expectations.

A fun read, an exciting plot, a strong message. Enjoy!

exciting, engrossing tense and delicious
this rich tapestry of words will intrigue and delight - drawing one into the cleverly concocted world of Venice in it's heyday.

Intense Donata lives a circumscribed life, hung about with conventions and prohibitions until she begins to wrest a little more from life by seeking adventures and conspiring with her sisters to acheive some equality in a world which is arranged for the comfort of men, and daughters left over get sent to convents.

A gracious mother and kind father unbend enough to allow Donata and her sisters & brothers careers and paths which suit their temperaments in a most compassionate way

Having read many of Donna Jo Napoli's other novels themed upon old fairytales, I kept trying to guess which old story she might have taken her inspiration this time - it kept me guessing right up until the last half, when I concluded this is a fresh! tale.

Fascinating!
Kotori 2005

Daughter of Venice, overall, was a pretty good book. In the beginning it was so boring. I kept saying to myself, "Who really cares?!" I wanted to stop reading it, but I didn't have time, since I had to write a report on it. As I read on, the book got exciting. I finished the book with so many unanswered questions. Also, I think the author, Donna Jo Napoli, should add much more description to her writing, so you would feel like you were in Donata's position. Overall it was an okay book.

By a 9 year old girl.
I really like this book. It is about a girl who lives in a plazza. As a girl she can't go out and see the world so she sneaks out and meets a boy. Se falls in love with him. She knows she can't marry him because they are from different religions and difforent ranks of status in life. I recommend this book to anyone who likes romance and edventure. You may think this book sounds sad but it's notbecause it is just tradtion. I rate this book excellent!

This book is one of the best I have ever read. It made me cry when she revealed her identity to Noe. Her feelings are so real adn I can totally relate with her wanting to explore an dlearn as much as she can. This is a book no one should miss. It is well worth the time I spent reading it.