BEYOND THE GAME

A portrait of the “best basketball player on the planet,” focusing particularly on his off-the-court I PROMISE initiative.

Maraniss covers LeBron James’ life from a young boy to a b-ball titan but positions his subject here as “just a kid from Akron who wanted to help other people.” So though he recaps LeBron’s professional career (so far) in broad outline, he directs at least as much attention to his work with his hometown’s low-income families, his public protests in the wake of the killings of Trayvon Martin and other Black victims, and his defiant response to the Fox News commentator who told him to just “shut up and dribble”: “I AM MORE THAN AN ATHLETE.” Maraniss also covers the I PROMISE school, which offers meals, bikes, college scholarships, and more to students and even housing and job training for their families. In line with the series theme, backmatter contains both career stats (up to the end of 2023) and challenges to readers to stand up, speak up, and look for ways to give struggling fellow students an assist. “In a world with so much injustice, how will you help others?” Even as a child, LeBron is a charismatic figure in Hodge’s monochrome illustrations.

Low on sports action; high on humanitarian values.