Magic Box

A high school basketball player's smoking may disqualify her from the big game.

Mara Bennetti is one of Covello High School's star basketball players, and her team is going for the coveted trophy in the State Championship. But because her mother, who is a member of the school board, has introduced a school ban on athletes who smoke, Mara's chances of playing in the big game could be in jeopardy!

Chosen as part of the New York Public Library's 'Books for the Teen Age 1991" exhibition.

School Library Journal

A contemporary problem novel with sports as a backdrop. Mara is a star on her high-school basketball team and a sure bet to win a college scholarship until--she jeopardizes her chances by violating her school's ``no smoking'' rule for athletes. The cigarette ban, created by Mara's mother, a former smoker and school-board member, causes a lot of tension between the two. Mara is sure that her mother's sore throat and strained voice are just another ploy to drive home her warnings about smoking. When she finds out that her mother has throat cancer and faces surgery the day after the championship game (losing her larynx or ``magic box'' of the title), the two work out their differences and Mara quits smoking cold turkey. Although there is some basketball play-by-play, the sports element of this story concentrates more on the team's interrelationships as the girls face recruiting pressure and their own personal problems. While the plot of this first-person narrative moves swiftly, and Mara's addiction to cigarettes is clearly shown, the character development and action is often heavy-handed and repetitive. In some scenes there is a tendency toward lecturing in order to get information across, and the dialogue bounces back and forth without enough development of the situation. Melodrama is the unfortunate result of so many problems being introduced and just as quickly resolved. --Susan Schuller, Milwaukee Public Library