James may be the best basketball player in the world right now; he's definitely one of the most popular. And Bissinger's Friday Night Lights became a national sensation, spawning a movie and a successful television series. They should make for a powerful combination as they present the story of James's amazing Akron, OH, high school basketball team, which won multiple state titles and a national championship. Many readers will be interested to know the details surrounding his suspension during his senior year for accepting free "throw-back" jerseys from a local sports dealer and his mother's controversial purchase of a $50,000 Hummer. Unlike Friday Night Lights, few details of the lives of either James himself or his best friends/teammates, the "Fab Five," are given. Verdict People will want to read this because of James's star power and the controversies he addresses. Both fans of James and of books on high school sports will find the story of the games, the players, and the coaches engaging, but they may be disappointed with matter-of-fact game descriptions that fail to build much excitement.-Todd Spires, Bradley Univ. Lib., Peoria, IL Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.

James, the highest-paid athlete (including endorsement deals) in the NBA, turns to Bissinger (Friday Night Lights) to tell the story of his meteoric rise as a high school basketball player, when he and his teammates took a private school in Ohio to state and national championships. Looking back at the media circus that put him on the cover of Sports Illustrated at 17, James accuses the media of overexposing him for their own benefit. It feels like the young superstar is working out some grudges against the athletic officials who challenged his amateur status after he accepted two jerseys from a sporting goods store as a gift, along with his school for failing to take his side in the controversy, but Bissinger smoothes out the rough edges, letting very little anger show. That polish is the as-told-to memoir's biggest problem-despite stylistic flourishes like shifting to present tense to write about James's big games, his passion seems muted. James hits all the right moments, from the childhood promise he made to himself to put Akron on the map to the graduation day photo with his teammates, but it's a story readers hear rather than feel. (Sept.) Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.

LeBron James is the best basketball player in the world. Sorry Kobe. He entered the NBA immediately after high school and has been piling up awards ever since (including Most Valuable Player for the 2009 season). But the NBA isn't his subject here. Writing with coauthor Bissinger (of Friday Night Lights fame), James recalls his youth, the son of a teenage single mother, growing up poor in Akron, Ohio, and playing basketball for the Shooting Stars, an amateur team whose players formed the nucleus of the St.Vincent-St. Mary's high-school squad that won Ohio state titles in three of James' four prep years. Though there's enough game action described to satisfy hard-core hoopsters, the book is really an extended and heartfelt thank-you to all the people who helped LeBron negotiate the potential minefield of his youth. That group includes fellow players, coaches, his mother, and the family that took him in for a year during a particularly difficult time. A warm, thoughtful memoir by a young man who, it seems clear, will never forget his humble origins.--Lukowsky, Wes Copyright 2009 Booklist