Anna and Mica meet by chance and become pen pals in this story told in the letters where their shared their love of science and nature brings them together. One of the girls is trying to adjust to a new foster situation and the other to her first time attending school and it is the trials of these experiences that they share with each other along with shells and other specimens. Their friendship though has its rough spots when Mica makes a friend from school and Anna's foster mother starts dating Mr. Webster but they ultimately overcome these and help each other in Adrian Fogelin's The Sorta Sisters. This tale of friendship and growing up is best for reader's in grades 5-8.