LeBron James’ task in Philly bears a striking similarity to his new children’s book

Attention Philly shoppers: When you’re hitting the candy aisle this week for Halloween provisions, be sure to stock up on Twizzlers, Mike & Ike’s, Snickers and Reese’s. Should LeBron James opt to park his helicopter on your front stoop to trick-or-treat, that’s what he’ll be looking for. So says James via an email interview with CNN Sports about his latest book, “Happy Spooky Halloween.” The book, a simple story about big kids and little kids working together to craft a Halloween party that finds the balance between scary and fun, could be a metaphor for his current condition. Rewriting the NBA pecking order while relocating from Los Angeles to Philadelphia and trading the Lakers’ gold standard for the 76ers’ un-Processing is a little scary. But if the big kids (James, Jaylen Brown and Joel Embiid) work together with the little kids (Tyrese Maxey, VJ Edgecombe and Anfernee Simons), it also might be a lot of fun. To be clear, James wasn’t penning an autobiography here. Main character Zara’s quick work toning down the overzealous fifth-grade cast of flying witches and hungry wolves required a lot less effort than taming the New York Knicks and the Boston Celtics. He was merely writing a book about one of his favorite holidays, one that conjures fond memories of running around Akron, Ohio, dressed up like his favorite horror movie characters – the haunting, bladed-glove-handed Freddy Krueger from “A Nightmare on Elm Street,” the shapeshifting creepy clown Pennywise from Stephen King’s “It,” and the hockey-masked stalker Jason Voorhees (props to James for using both names when he referenced him) from “Friday the 13th.” But in its pages, James was also hoping to find another way to connect with kids. “When I was little, I remember how much joy it brought me to get out of the house and trick or treat, just to see what other people are dressed up as and get a bunch of candy,” he said. “I think there’s so much to love about that experience of everyone coming out and enjoying that tradition with your community.” Helping kids, connecting with them and inspiring them has been an ongoing theme of James’ off-court life. He has penned four children’s books, and eight years ago, his foundation provided the funding for the I Promise School, an Akron-based elementary school for at-risk children that now includes grades one through eight. “We want to inspire kids to read more, and to be encouraged by stories they see themselves in,” he said. Without settling too comfortably into the psychiatrist’s armchair, it is easy to see why James’ own life might fuel such a hope. It’s hard to remember James’ beginnings anymore. He’s 41, so those early days feel like a lifetime ago. But they’re also a lifestyle ago, a foggy memory so incongruent with the present that it is hard to imagine that we’re talking about the same person. LeBron James is one-name famous, a crossover star who made his name and fortune in sports yet became so otherworldly at playing basketball that his singular name became part of the world’s lexicon. But before all that – before the four rings and the three gold medals, before the estimated $1 billion in endorsements and the helicopter taxi, before The Chosen One evolved into King James – he was just the son of a single mom, growing up in search of roots in Akron. LeBron James is one of the greatest basketball players in history and one of the world's most recognizable athletes. He has won four NBA titles over his 23-year career, most recently with the Los Angeles Lakers in 2020. He has also won titles with the Miami Heat and the Cleveland Cavaliers.In 2023, James became the NBA's all-time leading scorer, breaking Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's regular-season record of 38,387 points.In addition to being the NBA's all-time scoring king, James is also fourth all-time in assists and sixth in steals.On July 24, James announced that he would be playing for the Philadelphia 76ers for his 24th NBA season. With the benefit of hindsight, knowing what we now know about James, his origin story reads more like a tall tale. There’s the 9-year-old living with a local football coach who walked into the backyard in October 1994 and took to hooping like a duck to water, and there’s the peewee football star who scored 18 touchdowns in his first six-game season. There’s the high school star so popular that they moved his games to the University of Akron arena to accommodate the crowds, and of course the teenager who ended up on the cover of Sports Illustrated. James was, goes the narrative, born for this and borne into this. But it was not that linear. Not even close. Lost in the hyperbole and foreshadowing of greatness is the hard and ordinary stuff. The son of a loving single mom who struggled to make a way for the boy they called BronBron. Sleeping on sofas, cashing welfare checks for snacks, and relying on strangers’ kindness to take him in gave him some semblance of stability and structure. The elementary schooler so lost that, in one single year, he missed, according to ESPN.com, more than 100 days of school – not because he didn’t want to learn but in part because his life was so transient, he wasn’t sure which school to go to. Back then, he read the “Goosebumps” series as “an escape.” “Through books,” he told CNN Sports, “I could travel the world.’’ That inspired a life of curiosity, fueling an education not dissimilar to the one he’s trying to offer kids through his books. “I’m just a student of life and always want to learn new things,” he said. “So, I like to read about other people’s successes and journeys to see how they got to be where they are now.” He wasn’t being literal. But maybe have those sweets ready in case that candy-seeking helicopter shows up out front.