The ports of Liverpool and Providence are touched on at the beginning and end of The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle. Neither city is described in detail, although the multitude of ships crowded together at Liverpool is vividly presented. Nearly all the novel's action take place on the Seahawk, a brig. Avi provides a diagram of the ship in an appendix to the novel, and this should help readers follow where the action takes place. Although Avi takes care to explain nautical terms as they come up in the narrative, the illustration of the ship clarifies where the different parts of the ship are to be found.

The Seahawk is a two-masted ship, with a mainmast and a foremast. Each mast consists of tree trunks bound together; it takes three stages of trunks, one upon another, to stretch the masts to their full heights. In the course of...