Quick Take
- Narration: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar narrates his own story, and that decision transforms this from a biography into something closer to a conversation with a living legend, unhurried, reflective, and completely authoritative.
- Themes: Identity formation, mentorship, racial justice and social activism, the burden and gift of talent
- Mood: Thoughtful and generous, with a warmth that accumulates across nearly six hours
- Verdict: One of the stronger self-narrated sports memoirs for young readers, Abdul-Jabbar’s voice carries genuine gravity, and the story he’s telling is bigger than basketball.
I started Becoming Kareem on a Saturday afternoon with no particular intention of finishing it that day. By Sunday evening it was done. There’s something about Abdul-Jabbar’s narration that makes the hours dissolve, not because the story is paced like a thriller, but because you keep wanting to hear what this man thinks about the next thing, and the next thing after that. He has the voice of someone who has thought very carefully about everything that happened to him.
This is the first memoir for young readers by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and it covers the years when he was still Lew Alcindor: a kid from New York City struggling to fit in, navigating a strict father, and working through the particular loneliness of being visibly different in nearly every room he entered. What transforms the book is the roster of mentors Abdul-Jabbar names and credits along the way, coaches Jack Donahue and John Wooden, Muhammad Ali, Bruce Lee. Each of these figures arrives in the narrative with specific weight, not as cameos but as people who genuinely shaped how he understood himself and his responsibilities.
The Harlem Years and What They Built
One reviewer specifically called out the sections on Abdul-Jabbar’s journalism work in Harlem as a highlight, and that observation tracks with the book’s overall strength: this is a memoir about the formation of an intellectual and an activist as much as an athlete. The years in Harlem, the exposure to the civil rights movement, the Cleveland Summit, these passages situate him inside a specific historical moment and show how the person who would become a public figure was shaped by proximity to other people making history. For young readers who primarily know Abdul-Jabbar as a basketball statistic, this context is revelatory.
The self-narration is the essential feature of this audiobook. When Abdul-Jabbar describes the racism and prejudice that shaped his early life, he does so with the authority of someone who actually lived it and has had decades to understand what it meant. He doesn’t perform injury or outrage for the listener. He describes what happened, what it felt like, and what he decided to do about it. That register, calm, clear, earned, is exactly what a story like this needs.
Written for Young Readers, Worth Hearing at Any Age
Multiple reviewers noted they didn’t realize this was a young readers edition when they purchased it and were pleasantly surprised. One reviewer finished it in a single day; another engaged with it despite having little interest in sports because the cultural history was compelling on its own terms. This happens with the best young readers adaptations of serious memoirs, the clarity of purpose that comes from writing for younger audiences often strips away the self-indulgence that can make adult memoirs meander. Becoming Kareem doesn’t have a wasted section.
The comparison to Proud is natural here: both books are young readers adaptations of adult memoirs by barrier-breaking athletes who were also navigating faith, identity, and racism in predominantly white sporting environments. But where Ibtihaj Muhammad’s story focuses on the years before international recognition, Abdul-Jabbar’s memoir can look back across a completed arc of transformation, from Lew Alcindor to Kareem, with the full perspective of someone who has already processed what all of it meant.
Mentorship as the Book’s Central Architecture
What distinguishes Becoming Kareem from most sports biographies for young readers is how seriously it takes the people around the protagonist. The named coaches, the historical figures who let young Lew Alcindor into their circles, the community that sustained him, these relationships are the structure of the narrative. This is not a self-made-man story. It’s the opposite of that: a deliberate account of how many hands and minds shaped one person into someone capable of becoming great. For young readers being raised in a culture that celebrates individual achievement above all else, that framing is quietly subversive and genuinely useful.
Who Should Listen and Who Should Skip
This is appropriate for middle school listeners and up, though mature younger readers of 9 or 10 can handle the content with an adult. Strongly recommended for fans of basketball history, listeners interested in civil rights-era America, and anyone who wants to hear what a life of principled resistance sounds like from the inside. Adults who enjoy sports memoirs with social and historical depth will find this a satisfying five-plus hours. Skip this only if you want something faster-paced and lighter in tone, Becoming Kareem asks for your full attention and gives back more than it takes.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why does the book refer to Abdul-Jabbar as Lew Alcindor for much of its runtime?
Lew Alcindor was Abdul-Jabbar’s birth name, which he used until converting to Islam in 1971. The book covers the years before that conversion, when he was still developing the identity and values that would eventually lead to the name change. The shift from Lew to Kareem is part of the memoir’s arc, it’s the destination the title points toward.
How does Abdul-Jabbar’s narration compare to professional narrators for middle-grade audiobooks?
Abdul-Jabbar’s narration is slower and more reflective than the brisk pacing common in middle-grade audio, and that pace is part of what makes it work. He has the gravitas of someone revisiting formative years with earned perspective. Listeners who prefer high-energy narration may find the tempo deliberate, but for a memoir of this depth, the unhurried delivery is an asset, not a limitation.
Does the book cover Abdul-Jabbar’s NBA career in detail?
The memoir focuses primarily on his formative years and the path to his professional career rather than delivering a game-by-game or season-by-season breakdown of his NBA tenure. The emotional and intellectual journey from childhood to identity formation is the book’s subject. Basketball is the vehicle, not the destination.
Is the content appropriate for younger children, or is it better suited to older middle schoolers?
The book is written for young readers broadly, but the subject matter, racism, identity, religious conversion, social activism, is handled with depth that makes it best suited for ages 10 and up. Younger children can certainly listen with an adult, but the most meaningful engagement will come from readers old enough to hold the historical and social context.
