• Is it age appropriate?

  About our ratings

  (Flash is loading. If this text does not disappear you need to install the latest flash version)

  Not age appropriate for kids under 8, age appropriate for kids over 9; suggested age 9.

• Is it any good?

  5.0

• Common Sense says

  Brilliant high-seas adventure is a classic.

Why We Rated This for Ages 9 and Up

The good stuff

• Educational value:

  A strong depiction of 19th-century life and values, and heavily research-based view of sailing ships, sailors, and the trans-Atlantic crossing.
• Messages:

  Some racism against a black cook. But otherwise, messages are very positive. Charlotte begins the story with ingrained race, class, and sex role prejudices, but learns better during the course of the book. She makes tremendous sacrifices to stand up for what she believes, and to atone for mistakes she made in ignorance.
• Role models:

  Charlotte shakes off the shackles of her proper upbringing to become the person she decides to be, enduring much hardship in the process. She models looking at her own beliefs, outlook, actions, and their consequences objectively, then acting decisively to make real changes in herself and to atone for her mistakes.

What to watch out for

• Violence:

  A man is whipped almost to death, another is stabbed to death, and a third is beaten so severely that his arm must be amputated. Later he is shot and killed, graphically described, and his body is tossed overboard. A man strikes another with a belaying pin. A mention of men hanged and crows pecking out their eyes, and the young heroine is condemned to hang, though she doesn't.
• Sex:

  Not an issue.
• Language:

  Not an issue.
• Consumerism:

  Not an issue.
• Drinking, drugs, & smoking:

  A mention of rum.

What Parents Need to Know

About The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle

Families Can Talk About