Amazon.com Review
Award-winning author Donna Jo Napoli whisks young readers away to glittering Renaissance Venice in this first-rate historical novel about a young woman who longs to experience the wide world beyond her cloistered window. The year is 1592, and 14-year-old Donata is a pampered member of the noble Mocenigo family. But Donata is restless. Always confined to the palazzo, she is tired of learning everything second-hand from her brothers. And she is angered by the Venetian law that states only her older sister may marry. Donata knows that the only destiny that awaits her is the convent or maiden aunt-hood, neither of which are very appealing. "The mysteries of Venice are like a rainbow--and I am soon to be shut away from them." But as part of an elaborate scheme to outwit her parents, Donata decides to disguise herself as a beggar boy. Finally, she sees the real Venice, and it is both as beautiful as she had believed and more horribly raw than she could have ever imagined. Now she has no idea how she can ever reconcile what she has learned with the life she is expected to lead.
Based on one of the first acknowledged female Venetian scholars, Daughter of Venice is so rich with historical detail and intrigue that readers will quickly feel the desperation and exhilaration of Donata's daring deception. Napoli provides an authentic taste of this complex society on the brink of change and the ancient rules that still bound its women both physically and mentally. A gorgeous, bountiful book. (Ages 10 to 15) --Jennifer Hubert
From Publishers Weekly
Napoli returns to the locale of Stones in Water and For the Love of Venice, this time for a costume drama set in the late 16th century. At 14, Donata Mocenigo and her twin sister watch carefully as their noble parents set about finding a husband for their older sister. Venetian economics dictate that one daughter of a noble family will surely wed, but only with luck will a second daughter be married the remaining daughters either enter convents or care for a married brother's children. Eschewing a traditional romance, Napoli forges a plot with contemporary elements. Donata wants to see Venice and receive the same education as her brothers; she studies the family business and embraces what facts she can uncover about Venetian history and politics. Obtaining a working-class boy's clothes, she disguises herself and sets out on furtive daytime explorations of her beloved city. Soon she is befriended by an attractive young Jewish boy, who helps her find a morning job as a copyist (even though she can't read or write); with help from her sisters, her escapades go unnoticed by her parents. Enjoying the tour of historical Venice and the taste of its complex society and government, readers may not mind Donata's seeming immunity to the mores and prejudices of her day not even when, to avoid an arranged marriage, she anonymously and falsely denounces herself as a convert to Judaism and still earns herself a happy ending. Ages 10-up.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
