Twelve-year-old Ana Flores has never really taken to sports, but when she observes the women's softball team practice at the college where her mother is going to teach, she is intrigued and decides to try out for a local team; unfortunately it is harder than it looks--but with some help from one of the college girls, Caitlin, and Mali, a pitcher who is mad she only made second team, Ana gets to work on her catching, and Mali works on her attitude,...

Twelve-year-old Yasmin, a talented point guard on her school basketball team, learns about teamwork and standing up for oneself when she experiences racism at her new middle school.

Eighth-grader Ellie is a veteran on her volleyball team, but this year she is frustrated because she is having trouble with her footwork, and she hopes that getting involved with coaching the younger girls in the newly organized after-school group at the Boys and Girls Club will help her work through her problems--besides, it is fun and she was instrumental in setting it up.

Nita Dara is one of ten eighth graders who has already won a scholarship to attend the Alaska Young Explorers program and learn explorer skills in an Alaskan wilderness camp; but the program is also a competition and the winner will get 5000 dollars--money that Nita's family could really use--but on the final challenge she is paired with the super-competitive Sohail Aman, and the challenge turns deadly when they find themselves lost in the fog while...

When Will Pastora's family arrived at the Sorenson Resort for a family vacation he did not know that there was going to be a snowboarding competition; he enjoys snowboarding, but he is embarrassed to admit that he is only a beginner so he signs up at a higher level--and soon realizes that tackling the more difficult slopes is dangerous and that he needs some help to admit his error in front of his new, more experienced acquaintances.

When Alvin's twin sister, Yasmin, lands the lead role in their middle school play, Alvin is faced with the need to find something to do after school while she is rehearsing, so he takes up cross-country running (it is either that or doing homework in the library)--he has always been a fast runner, but he soon learns that distance running is more about patience and pacing than pure speed and staying in the lead, and he will have to adapt or be left...

When wide receiver Ethan drops a touchdown pass and his team loses the game, he starts to doubt his own abilities, but as the next game approaches he realizes that he has to do what his father and coaches are telling him to do--stop obsessing about failure and get back to playing confident football.

Although only in eighth grade Baxter Reilly is an important member of the Edgeview High School in Tempe, Arizona, and lately the pool has been his place of refuge from the stress of his parents' separation--but now, between the pending divorce, his father's miserable apartment, his mother's new boyfriend, and the resentment and bullying from his older teammates, it is getting harder to focus on his role as the anchor of the 4 x 400 freestyle relay...

Now that twelve-year-old Anya is old enough to join her fourteen-year-old sister Marina on the fast-pitch softball team things are becoming tense between them: Anya has trouble catching her sister's pitches and resents Marina's criticism and being moved to the outfield, Marina is increasingly obsessed with her role as captain, and angry because Anya does not seem to take the game as seriously as she does--and with an important game coming up the sisters...