“Champion: A Graphic Novel” by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Raymond Obstfeld, illustrated by Ed Laroche
c.2025,
Ten Speed Graphic
$26.99
128 pages
Your future is all laid out.
Work for a few summers, graduate, go to college, gather awards, and go on to a great career, with more awards, big money, and lots of fame. That’s Plan A, and there is no Plan B. But in the new graphic novel, “Champion” by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Raymond Obstfeld, illustrated by Ed Laroche, life may have other ideas for you.
Monk Travers wasn’t thinking.
He never figured that breaking into a rival high school’s hallway and vandalizing their mascot mural would have such awful effects. He didn’t plan on getting caught, and he certainly didn’t figure that his coach would make him sit out the next big basketball game.
He was the team’s best player, so that would hurt – the team, for the points he wouldn’t make; and Monk, because basketball was his thing. It was the only thing, as far as he was concerned, because Monk planned on becoming a professional basketball player after graduation.
So he was benched, and the Coach gave him an assignment. Monk had to write and present an essay about Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, not on Jabbar’s games but on his life.
When Coach gave him the assignment, it seemed like everything and everyone was coming down on Monk. His parents and boss at his part-time job scolded him for not paying attention to his other talents, artistic work, or piano playing. His “girlfriend-ish,” Lark, was mad at Monk for not being supportive and 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’s head when he didn’t need it. Why was Monk’s imagination so insistent on telling him things he didn’t want to hear?
He had a week to do the assignment. How could he focus when so much was happening?
In a way, “Champion” is something rare: it’s 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’s good to see. Another happy thing is that its graphic novel format has quite a bit of biography, as authors Abdul-Jabbar and Obstfeld write about Jabbar’s life and accomplishments at length. Readers will know that this isn’t just another comic-book-type story.
All that aside, the biggest appeal of 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’s a good, moral story that doesn’t feel like a lecture, and it’s hard not to get behind that. Artwork by Ed Laroche underscores the fun of reading it.
If you or your basketball-crazy reader wants a good story with an inspirational biography embedded within, find “Champion.” You won’t be able to lay it down.
