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Penguin Press
September 2009
On Sale: September 8, 2009
272 pages
ISBN: 159420232X
EAN: 9781594202322
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction Biography | Non-Fiction Sports
From the ultimate teamβbasketball superstar LeBron James and Buzz Bissinger, Pulitzer Prizeβwinning author of Friday Night Lights and Three Nights in Augustβa poignant, thrilling tale of the power of teamwork to transform young lives, including Jamesβs own The Shooting Stars were a bunch of kidsβLeBron James and his best friendsβfrom Akron, Ohio, who first met on a youth basketball team of the same name when they were ten and eleven years old. United by their love of the game and their yearning for companionship, they quickly forged a bond that would carry them through thick and thin (a lot of thin) and, at last, to a national championship in their senior year of high school. They were a motley group who faced challenges all too typical of inner-city America. LeBron grew up without a father and had moved with his mother more than a dozen times by the age of ten. Willie McGee, the quiet one, had left both his parents behind in Chicago to be raised by his older brother in Akron. Dru Joyce was outspoken, and his dad was ever present; he would end up coaching all five of the boys in high school. Sian Cotton, who also played football, was the happy-go-lucky enforcer, while Romeo Travis was unhappy, bitter, even surly, until he finally opened himself up to the bond his teammates offered him. In the summer after seventh grade, the Shooting Stars tasted glory when they qualified for a national championship tournament in Memphis. But they lost their focus and had to go home early. They promised one another they would stay together and do whatever it took to win a national title. They had no idea how hard it would be to fulfill that promise. In the years that followed, they would endure jealousy, hostility, exploitation, resentment from the black community (because they went to a βwhiteβ high school), and the consequences of their own overconfidence. Not least, they would all have to wrestle with LeBronβs outsize success, which brought too much attention and even a whiff of scandal their way. But together these five boys became men, and together they claimed the prize they had fought for all those yearsβa national championship. Shooting Stars is a stirring depiction of the challenges that face Americaβs youth today and a gorgeous evocation of the transcendent impact of teamwork.
 Media BuzzLate Show with David Letterman - September 22, 2009
The View - September 21, 2009
Daily Show with Jon Stewart - September 14, 2009
Good Morning America - September 9, 2009
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