Napoli, Donna Jo. Daughter of Venice.

Random House. 274p. c2002. 0-385-32780-3. $16.95. JS

Napoli is a professor of linguistics at Swarthmore College and she clearly understands the love of learning in the telling of this story of an exceptional girl, Donata, living in Venice in 1592. Donata is one of the daughters of a noble family, with traditional expectations carefully spelled out. Only one son may marry, and one daughter. The other daughters of the family are expected to go into convents; the sons are chosen for various professions in diplomacy, the law, and other positions of high responsibility. Donata's family is exceptionally rich, so perhaps a second daughter will have an arranged marriage as well. Donata at first thinks she would like this above the life in a convent, but really what she most yearns for is adventure and knowledge of her own city and of the world around her. With the help of her siblings, she disguises herself as a boy and goes into the streets of Venice, looking for experience. She makes friends with a young Jew who lives in the Jewish ghetto and works at a printer's. This contact starts to change her view of the world. She persuades her father to allow her to take part in the tutor's lessons with her brothers and she quickly proves to herself and to others that she has an exceptional mind. She learns to read and write--Venetian and Latin. The risks she takes in her disguise endanger herself and her family. One beloved sister will lose the chance to fulfill her own dream unless Donata comes up with a plan to alter both their futures.

The reader actually gets caught up in the life in Venice of this time. Donata's family seem quite real, even if their ways are so different from a family's today. I think YAs will be stunned to realize the limited opportunities for females through most of history--even wealthy girls from the elite classes. This is the strength of Napoli's work: through the strength of her own scholarship and storytelling abilities, Napoli makes Donata and her world a reality. In an Author's Note, Napoli dedicates this story to Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia, who became the first woman to earn a degree as Doctor of Philosophy, University of Padua, in 1678.