In another sports-themed caper featuring girls, King (Kickoff
) moves onto the basketball court, where WNBA aspirant Ashlee shines as brightly as she does in the classroom. Her waitress mother is “on her case 110 percent of the time” about studying for the upcoming scholarship exam at a prestigious New York City high school. The beleaguered woman has no use for Ashlee’s sport, because the girl’s father, a former hotshot pro basketball player who “burned out spectacularly on booze and women,” left the family years before. With her father’s help and without her mother’s knowledge, Ashlee (after taking the exam) flies to Miami to try out for the junior national team. The on- and off-court action plays out predictably: despite a peer’s attempt to sabotage her, Ashlee wins a slot on the team; her mother discovers her deception, acknowledges the importance of basketball to Ashlee and makes peace with her ex-husband, who has mended his renegade ways. The mother-daughter bickering grows tedious, and there are scattered moments of melodrama (when her mother learns that Ashlee has gone behind her back and asked her father for a plane ticket, the girl realizes “she’d smashed [her mother’s] heart into tiny pieces”). On the other hand, King offers many fast-moving game scenes, and these will score big with basketball-playing girls. Ages 9-12. (Nov.)
