competition (psychology)

"Makoto 'Smile' Tsukimoto and his friend Yutaka 'Peco' Hoshino have been playing table tennis since they were kids, but as they enter high school, they find that the game has changed. Seeing potential in them that they themselves don't fully realize, the coach recruits them for the school team. Bringing out their best will mean challenging the top players from rival schools in the summer tournament, including an ace Chinese exchange student who almost made the Olympic team. With the pressure on, can Smile and Peco take the heat and make it into the finals?"--Provided by publisher.

Competitive fox siblings Fritz and Franny both love ice cream, but when Mr. Bear's ice cream truck stops on their street they spend so much time trying to outdo each other imagining multiple flavors and toppings (while all the other kids are getting their cones) that the only flavor left is marshmallow pickle ripple--and they can only have one scoop each.

"Harry feels ignored when his family pays attention to the neighbor's visiting guinea pig, but everything changes when the children bring both Harry and the guinea pig to school"--OCLC.

"Liz Lighty has always done her best to avoid the spotlight in her small, wealthy, and prom-obsessed midwestern high school, after all, her family is black and rather poor, especially since her mother died; instead she has concentrated on her grades and her musical ability in the hopes that it will win her a scholarship to elite Pennington College and their famous orchestra where she plans to study medicine--but when that scholarship falls through she is forced to turn to her school's scholarship for prom king and queen, which plunges her into the gauntlet of social media which she hates and leads her to discoveries about her own identity and the value of true friendships"--Provided by publisher.

"Cherry Hill Elementary has always had two baseball fields, one for Sylvie Scruggs's fourth grade-and-under friends, and one for Jamie Redmond's fifth-grade crew. When Jamie's field is demolished for a kindergarten playground, the fifth graders want to take over the fourth-grade space. Finally, Sylvie and Jamie make a bet: Whoever wins the school spelling bee wins the baseball diamond too. Sylvie knows her friend Miranda will be the champion, no question, and the field will be safe for her team"--Provided by publisher.

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 hiking down a glacier, where a single misstep could mean injury and death.

Two Brazilian American siblings, Lia and Lu?s, are always competing, even when it comes to their favorite Brazilian snacks from their family's store; they want to know which of them has more, and they use various mathematical techniques to pick a winner--and then share the delicious results.

"Throughout the years both Rowan and Neil have been at competition with one another on everything from who has the best ideas for school functions to which one will be their graduating class's valedictorian. However, in the twenty-four hours left they have as high school students, the two learn they share something much deeper than a rivalry"--Provided by publisher.

It seems that aspiring playwright Natalie and musician Reid have been in competition all their young lives, but when they are forced to compete for scarce school budget dollars they embark on an all-out prank war which backfires; now they are forced to cooperate, pool their talents and ambitions to produce a school musical--and not only is cooperation an unfamiliar role, but they are suddenly starting to have feelings for each other.

Nelson Greenwood loves drawing superheroes, particularly the hero of his own comic book, Major Speed, modeled on Nelson's twin brother Nick, a skilled BMX rider--but when a crash knocks Nick out of a competition, and he suggests that Nelson take his place, Nelson is not sure he can summon the skills of Major Speed and compete against the best BMX riders, particularly Nick's nemesis, Cain Otto.