Eddie Perlas / ESPN Images(NEW YORK) — After leaving the court in 2016, basketball legend Kobe Bryant dove into his more artistic side: first writing the Oscar-winning Dear Basketball and now creating a whole series of books for young people.
His new book The Wizenard Series: Training Camp was released just last month, and has already found its way onto the New York Times bestsellers list.
Bryant told ABC News’ Good Morning America that he gets “a lot” of eye rolls when he tries to tell people about the series, which has been described as a Harry Potter-style fantasy mixed with the Olympics.
“It’s strange right?” he quipped. “Ok, Kobe’s now writing fantasy novels and creating fantasy novels.”
But Bryant says he is passionate about wanting to help young people to process their emotions and fears, and plus, says he is a “huge, huge Harry Potter fan.”
One way he hopes to help young people process emotions is by helping them find something they are passionate about.
“If you can wrap it around something that they are passionate about — basketball or volleyball or soccer — and teach life lessons through the sport,” he said. “Then it’s more powerful.”
“And that’s what I try to do with the Wizenard series,” Bryant added.
“I was very fortunate to have basketball, but even more fortunate to find storytelling after,” he said. “Because I really, really love this.”
What comes next for the retired sports legend? Well, probably not Dancing With the Stars, he said.
“My knees would be like, ‘Dude, what are you doing? we just went through 20 years of beating me up — Don’t dance,'” he said.
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