Review of "Backboard Magic," by Howard M. Brier

Review of

Backboard Magic, by Howard M. Brier

Five out of five stars

 The book opens with Skip Turner attending Madison High in a large city. He is attending tryouts for the basketball team and while he is good, Skip is lost among the many boys trying to make the team. Since he is a senior, when Skip is cut from the team, it would appear that his high school basketball career is over.

 However, fortune smiles on him when his father is transferred to a job in the small town of Hillchuck. Skip decides to try out and soon discovers that Hillchuck is a town that takes high school basketball seriously. Their gym is first rate with glass backboards and a relatively large seating capacity and their coach knows the game very well.

 Although Skip’s talent becomes clear very quickly, it takes time before he is integrated into the team. Another boy  (Flash Knutson) transfers in at the same time as Skip and while Skip is soft-spoken, Flash never hesitates to talk up his game and is a ball hog. There is dissension on the team, but they win and do well in the state tournament.

 This story is the proper blend of teen angst and the struggle to establish what kind of person they will be with the action of high school sports and the state basketball tournament. Skip questions his actions and motives, but never to the point where he suffers from damaging self-doubt. While Hillchuck’s foe in the big game at the end was completely predictable, the action still retains the level of intensity that keeps the reader focused. It is an excellent book of adolescent sports fiction.