Shooting Stars

by H.G. Bissinger, LeBron James, Buzz Bissinger

Book Overview

The inspiration for the Peacock Original Movie "Shooting Stars" "A book that will incredibly move and inspire you." --Jay-Z "An entertaining, well-written reminder that even if he seems to have been... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 159420232X
• ISBN13: 9781594202322
• Release Date: September 2009
• Publisher: Penguin Press
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 1.22 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.1" x 9.3"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 12 and higher

Customer Reviews

Shooting Stars, In My Eyes, Gets 5 Stars.

In "Shooting Stars", by Buzz Bissinger & Lebron James, the main characters are LeBron James,Little Dru Joyce,Coach Dru(father of Little Dru),Sian Cotton,Willie McGee,and Romeo Travis. LeBron,Little Dru,Sian, and Willie pretty much grew up together, playing basketball together in the AAU tournament being coached by Coach Dru,hence his nickname, who would also later on become their St. Vincents head coach in their junior and senior seasons.The conflict in "Shooting Stars" is one of Man Vs. Man, the Fab Four fighting those who persecuted the Fab Four for not attending and playing basketball for Butchel High School, but instead attending a "white" school, St Vincent's-St Mary's. Another conflict in the story consisted of the St Vincent's team and the teams they played throughout the high school tournaments. Also, a third conflict was one of Man vs. Surroundings, LeBron James growing up in poverty and having to move constantly, Willie having to uproot from Chicago to Illinois, and Romeo transferring from the high school he played at as a freshman to a St. Vincent's school where he had trouble making friends, but eventually befriending the Fab Four. The hard work and determenation in practices and in AAU basketball led up to the rising action. One event was when the then Fab Four played the AAU National Championship and lost, making them tougher and stronger. Also, Romeo Travis joining the team led up to their number one ranking in the country, as close as a national championship win they would get since there is no high school national championship. Third, the defeat of Mater Dei, a private catholic school powerhouse, certainly led up to their number one ranking. What did I like about this novel? Virtually everything. This book was not only about LeBron James, which most would come to expect, it highlighted the whole Fab Five. For Example, there was a whole chapter on Willie McGee and a whole chapter on Romeo Travis alone. Also, after reading this book you feel like you know the Fab Five personally. The book tells every small detail about their run to number one. Last, this books starts with background information on the players' personal lives, not just their life on the court.

Shooting Stars

Pulitzer Prize-winner Buzz Bissinger has teamed with LeBron James to produce a delightful book about James' years as a high school star basketball players. With the typical depth, sensitivity and style that Bissinger always offers, the reader gets unique insights into what it was like for a teenager who because he was blessed with incredible athletic talent found himself confronting and dealing with pressures most adults never encounter. A good story, a quick read. Enjoy!!

Outstanding!

The Shooting Stars were a bunch of kids from Akron, Ohio (LeBron James and his best friends) who first met on a youth basketball team when they were ten and eleven years old. LeBron was the only child of a single mother (1984, at age 16), grew up without a father and had moved over a dozen times by the age of ten. Willie McGee had left both his drug-using parents in Chicago to be raised by his older brother in Akron. Dru Joyce was short, but outspoken and a perfectionist, and his dad ended up coaching the group in high school. Sian Cotton was the happy-go-lucky enforcer, and Romeo Travis was a surly outsider until he later opened up and the group accepted him. LeBron missed nearly 100 days of school in the 4th grade due to transportation problems. His mother then had him stay with the family of his pee-wee league football coach, giving him needed discipline and responsibility. LeBron then didn't miss a day of school and learned to like it. The family also helped LeBron's mother obtain a subsidized apartment (no more moves) and introduced LeBron to basketball. LeBron met Coach Dru at a local recreation center, along with the other players in 1996; despite only playing 7 games together at the time, they qualified for the national tournament that year. The group finished 9th out of 64 teams. During the off-season, Coach Dru spent considerable effort reading and researching on how to become a better coach. The players spent most of their time together - at each others' homes when not practicing or playing. Each year the group went to the national tourney, finishing second their last year. Everyone in Akron assumed the group would enroll at Buchtel High, a predominately black school. 'Little' Dru, however, became convinced he wouldn't be a starting player there, and declared his intention to instead attend St. Vincent's - a predominantly white Catholic school with a team led by Coach Dambrot (former Div. I college coach) whom they'd met at a weekend $1/person basketball clinic. Eventually, the entire group decided to go also. It was a rough transition. The black community saw the group as traitors, and some in the white community saw the group as usurpers pushing deserving long-term white students out of starting basketball roles. Then there was the matter of the terrible practices. Coach Dambrot had been firm but patient at the clinics - now be became a screaming madman, demanding impossible levels of excellence. Fortunately, the players were supported by parents and relatives, and stuck it out - they now agree that Coach Dambrot knew what he was doing and thank him for it. In their junior year, however, Coach Dambrot left to return to college ball (University of Akron), Coach Dru took over, and the team's intensity sagged - LeBron believes they were all too full of themselves (two straight state championships and a 53:1 record up to that point), disobeying Coach Dru, staying out late on game nights, petty fighting amongst each other, and

Basketball is the least of it. This is the story of a Great Escape.

"We all we got." That epigram --- from the front of this book --- tells you all you need to know about LeBron James' memoir. He may be the world's best basketball player. Entire chapters may be devoted to chronicles of games. But this is not a book about basketball. Shooting Stars is a book about race, about being born black and poor and fighting your way around drugs and gangs and despair to become a decent human being. It's about character. Those are big subjects, bigger and more urgent every day. Ever since an African-American moved into the White House, the idea that a black man can be worthy has come under withering attack. And don't think for a minute that the Limbaughs, Becks and Hannitys are interested only in de-legitimizing Barack Obama. They want "their" country back --- and when you shake the rhetoric away from the message, you can pretty easily see that they want the black man to "know his place." But here's the catch. LeBron James --- who is now, at 24, the world's third-highest paid athlete --- had no place. Born in Akron, Ohio to a 16-year-old, he never knew his father. He moved a dozen times before he was 8. When he was 9, he missed 100 days of school, and his mother placed him in another home until she could get her life together. At 11, he had never been to Cleveland, just 39 miles away. What saved LeBron James from the streets? The friends he made when they were 10 and 11: Dru Joyce III, Willie McGee and Sian Cotton. They called themselves "The Fab Four" and they celebrated their brotherhood in their neighborhood, at school, and, most of all, on basketball courts. "We all we got." I'm not ashamed to say I cried when I read those words for the first time, and I mist up even now --- those words, and what's behind them, are the difference between life and death, success and failure. No one gets anywhere in life alone; everyone needs support. A family, a religious group, a circle of friends. Especially if you're poor and marginalized. As a group portrait, "Shooting Stars" is the story of some teenagers who worked at basketball until they were just about the best team in the country. It's about the many games they won, and how they did it, and the few they lost, and why. And it's about a boy of immense talent and deep wounds, who became, at 18, so remarkably good that he skipped college and went right to the NBA. Ultimately, though, it's about a young bodhisattva --- a boy with a vision, and great teachers, and greater friends. It's about the struggle to fit in at St. Vincent-St. Mary High School, where the kids were white and there was a dress code, and zero tolerance for facial hair, tats or bling. It's about being hated for being good, and burrowing deeper into your brotherhood. And it's about teams. The truth of basketball, as Michael Jordan had to learn, is that scoring champions don't win championships. Teams do. And that is true of so much more than basketball. "We all we got." So you'll read the story of the

Not a sports fan. GREAT BOOK.

This book interested me for one reason: Buzz Bissinger. I've enjoyed Bissinger's work for years. Now, I can honestly say I'm a fan of LeBron James AND really all of the young men who are a part of this story. Together, these basketball players LIVED the concept of "teamwork." The moving heart of this book is how these young men come together for one another and for the group as a whole. This is a powerful story of teamwork and friendship. I left this reading experience transformed. The messages in this book are positive and inspiring for anyone who is facing a challenge in life. Well done. FIVE stars.