{"id":17589,"date":"2025-10-30T17:03:25","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T17:03:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/?p=17589"},"modified":"2025-10-30T17:06:18","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T17:06:18","slug":"champion-a-graphic-novel-by-kareem-abdul-jabbar-and-raymond-obstfeld-illustrated-by-ed-laroche","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/30\/champion-a-graphic-novel-by-kareem-abdul-jabbar-and-raymond-obstfeld-illustrated-by-ed-laroche\/","title":{"rendered":"Champion: A Graphic Novel by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Raymond Obstfeld, illustrated by Ed Laroche"},"content":{"rendered":"

c.2025, Ten Speed Graphic\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 <\/em>
\n$26.99\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 <\/em>
\n128 pages<\/em><\/p>\n

By Terri Schlichenmeyer<\/em>
\nThe Truth Contributor<\/em><\/p>\n

Your future is all laid out.<\/p>\n

Work a few summers, graduate, go to college, gather awards and go on to a great career, more awards, big money, lots of fame. That\u2019s Plan A and there is no Plan B. But in the new graphic novel, Champion<\/em> by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Raymond Obstfeld, illustrated by Ed Laroche,<\/strong> life may have other ideas for you.<\/p>\n

Monk Travers just wasn\u2019t thinking.<\/p>\n

He never figured that breaking into a rival high school\u2019s hallway and vandalizing their mascot mural would have such awful effects. He didn\u2019t plan on getting caught and he certainly didn\u2019t figure that his coach would make him sit out the next big basketball game.<\/p>\n

He was the team\u2019s best player, so that would hurt \u2013 the team, for the points he wouldn\u2019t make; and Monk, because basketball was his thing. It was the only<\/em> thing, as far as he was concerned, because Monk planned on becoming a professional basketball player after graduation.<\/p>\n

And so he was benched, plus Coach gave him an assignment. Monk had to write and present an essay about Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Not on Jabbar\u2019s games, but on his life.<\/em><\/p>\n

When Coach gave him the assignment, it seemed like everything and everyone was coming down on Monk. His parents and his boss at his part-time job both scolded him for not paying attention to his other talents, his artistic work or his piano playing. His \u201cgirlfriend-ish,\u201d Lark, was mad at Monk for not being supportive and for missing her big ball game. The guys on his team were embarrassed that they had to help clean the mural Monk had defaced. And then there was this ghost, an invisible spirit of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar that kept popping into Monk\u2019s head, just when he didn\u2019t need it. Why was Monk\u2019s imagination so insistent on telling him things he didn\u2019t want to hear?<\/p>\n

He had a week to do the assignment. How could he focus when so much was happening?<\/p>\n

In a way, Champion<\/em> is something rare: it\u2019s a book that will appeal to anyone, teen to adult, but it leans more toward an audience of older boys and young men, and that\u2019s good to see. Another happy thing: it\u2019s graphic novel format has quite a bit of biography in it, as authors Abdul-Jabbar and Obstfeld write at length about Jabbar\u2019s life and accomplishments. Readers will know that this isn\u2019t just another comic-book-type story.<\/p>\n

All that aside, the biggest appeal in this book is that the authors talk the talk without preaching. They also uplift girls, parents, and local businesses inside this tale, without making any of the characters seem like caricatures and without ridiculing any group of people. It\u2019s a good, moral story that doesn\u2019t have the feel of a lecture and it\u2019s hard not to get behind that. Artwork by Ed Laroche just underscores the fun of reading it.<\/p>\n

If you or your basketball-crazy reader wants a good story with an inspirational biography embedded within, find Champion<\/em>. You won\u2019t be able to lay it down.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

c.2025, Ten Speed Graphic\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 $26.99\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 128 pages By Terri Schlichenmeyer The Truth Contributor Your future is all laid out. Work a few summers, graduate, go to college, gather awards and go on to a great career, more awards, big money, lots of fame. That\u2019s Plan A and there […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17590,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"wf_post_folders":[20],"class_list":["post-17589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book_review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17589"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17589\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17591,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17589\/revisions\/17591"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17589"},{"taxonomy":"wf_post_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_post_folders?post=17589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}