Elizabeth (Liz) Belcher shares many loves with her best friend, Brianna, like rocking out to Oversoul, writing scripts for a future TV show, and shopping for new clothes before they start middle school. But after Bri suddenly moves away at the beginning of 6th grade, all Liz feels like doing is hiding in her shell much like the turtles she writes about in her scripts. She has to navigate being the small fish in the Bayview Middle School pond all while continuing to write and illustrate letters to friends and frenemies during the 1996-1997 school year. Alongside writing and receiving letters from classmates, Liz writes scripts that evolve into an underwater frame tale of a turtle teaming up with a duck to save her missing turtle partner.

Written with decoratively doodled borders and cutesy cartoons, Whispers: Liz's Letters from 6th Grade has all the middle school drama from unreliable pre-teens in the 1990s. Liz must learn to handle this as well as personal insecurities hidden within the deep depths of the Bayview classrooms, lunch tables, and even her own mind.