The new children’s book from late basketball legend Kobe Bryant is a No. 1 bestseller.
The Wizenard Series: Season One, conceived by Bryant and written by Wesley King, is officially the New York Times’ No. 1 bestselling hardcover middle-grade book, the Associated Press reports. The fantasy novel beat out books like Jeff Kinney’s Diary of an Awesome Friendly Kid and R.J. Palacio’s Wonder to claim the top spot.
The book is also doing well at Amazon, where it’s ranked No. 4 in children’s fantasy books and No. 63 among all books.
A sequel to the 2019 novel The Wizenard Series: Training Camp, Season One is the first book conceived by Bryant to be published after his death in a helicopter crash in January. After the tragedy, several books that he created or wrote instantly became bestsellers.
On Instagram, Bryant’s widow, Vanessa Bryant, celebrated the success of her husband’s novel.
“5 championships. 5 NYT bestsellers. The Mamba strikes again,” she wrote, using Kobe Bryant’s NBA nickname. “My husband @kobebryant would have been so proud to see his work continuing on with The #Wizenard Series: Season One. Thank you for supporting his legacy!!!!”
And on Twitter, Bryant’s collaborator Wesley King said he cried when he learned Season One made the Times bestseller list.
Cried when I saw this. We were so proud of this story. I wish you could see this. I wish a lot of things. Man, it’s hard to remember life before Jan 26th. It’s all changed. People are scared. Isolated. But the world remembers. Your vision lives on forever, brother. #MambaForever pic.twitter.com/0oBoiki1wp
— Wesley King (@WesleyTKing) April 8, 2020
“We were so proud of this story,” he wrote. “I wish you could see this. I wish a lot of things. Man, it’s hard to remember life before Jan 26th. It’s all changed. People are scared. Isolated. But the world remembers. Your vision lives on forever, brother.”
Michael Schaub is a Texas-based journalist and regular contributor to NPR.
