Donna Jo Napoli was born the youngest of four children in Miami, February 28, 1948, to an Italian-American family. After correcting an eyesight problem left undiagnosed until the age of 10, Napoli became an avid reader.[3] From then on she found solace in the escape provided by books, using reading as comfort during family troubles and instability stemming from her father's gambling problem.[3]
Napoli has dual citizenship in the U.S. and Italy. She is married and has five children.[4]
Education and linguistics career
She was accepted to Harvard University for undergraduate education and received both her B.S. (Mathematics, 1970) and M.A./Ph.D. (Romance Languages, 1973). Her PhD dissertation was titled The Two Si's of Italian: An Analysis of Reflexive, Inchoative, and Indefinite Subject Sentences in Modern Standard Italian and was published by the Indiana University Linguistics Club.[5] A postdoctoral fellowship in linguistics at M.I.T. in 1974 led to her resulting career in the field.[6]
Her publications in linguistics include Syntactic argumentation (with Emily Rando). (Washington, DC: Georgetown Univ. Press, 1979), Syntax: Theory and Problems (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1993), Linguistics: An introduction (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1996), Humour in sign languages: The linguistic underpinnings (with Rachel Sutton-Spence) (Dublin: Trinity Press, 2009), and L'animale parlante ("The speaking animal") (2004), written with Marina Nespor,[8] along with dozens of articles in the scholarly journals.[9]
Although Napoli always had a love of writing, she decided not to pursue it as a career in early life.[3] Her professional writing career began with the publication of her first book, The Hero of Barletta, in 1988. Napoli's novels tackle real-world problems children of any age may face, including family hardships, anxiety, phobias, and illness. As explained in a 2012 TED Talk, Napoli finds it important that children read stories about real-life problems they may face, to help comfort those who are experiencing similar difficulties.[11]
Her children's books have been translated into many languages, including different sign languages. Many of her children's books are retellings of fairy tales, including The Magic Circle, Crazy Jack, Spinners, Zel, Breath, Bound, Beast, and The Wager for older children, and The Prince of the Pond, Ugly, and Mogo the Third Warthog for younger children. Other children's stories are historical fiction based in Italy, including Daughter of Venice, For the Love of Venice, and The Smile. Napoli has won numerous awards for her work, including the Golden Kite Award given by the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (for Stones in Water, and honor book Breath), the Sydney Taylor Award given by the Association of Jewish Libraries (for Stones in Water, and, honor book, The King of Mulberry Street and the Parents' Choice Gold Award (for Alligator Bayou and Silver awards for North and The King of Mulberry Street).
Work with Deaf communities
In the early 2000s, Donna Jo Napoli began a program of research on sign languages and developed connections within the Deaf community.[12]
Napoli has contributed to linguistic research on sign languages, including the publication of the book Primary movement in sign languages in 2011.[13]
^Napoli, Donna Jo; Gaw, Nicholas; Mai, Mark (2011). Primary movement in sign languages: a study of six languages. Washington, DC: Gallaudet Univ. Press. ISBN978-1-56368-491-3.
^"Riseebooks". Riseebooks. Retrieved March 22, 2019.
