NBA star Amar’e Stoudemire is set to release a new book series for middle-school-aged children.

The books are to be published by Scholastic in a series called STAT: Standing Tall and Talented.

Co-written by Stoudemire with the Scholastic team, the New York Knicks captain’s first book of the series, Home Court, is about his life as a 6’11″ middle school student who plays basketball, baseball and football with his friends in Lake Wales, the small Florida city where he grew up.

According to a Scholastic spokesperson, the series is likely to be ongoing, although just three books have been commissioned to date.

Eleven-year-old Amar’e Stoudemire has a lot going on. He loves to go skateboarding in the park. He takes his school work very seriously. He helps out with his dad’s landscaping company. And he likes to play basketball with his best friends—but just for fun. When a group of older kids start disrespecting his boys on their neighborhood basketball court, there is only one solution. Amar’e must step in and use his athletic ability and intelligence to save the day. This experience leads Amar’e to realize that basketball is his true passion.

STAT is based on the life of All-Star NBA sensation Amar’e Stoudemire, who overcame many obstacles to become one of the most popular figures in sports today.

“Kids need to enjoy reading and not see it as a chore,” said Stoudemire, a “proud father of three” who says he didn’t read enough as a child and is now “always” reading to his kids (ages 7, 5 and 4). He said he wrote STAT to give kids more opportunities to read books for fun.

The books are just part of Stoudemire’s efforts to promote child literacy. The Amar’e Stoudemire Foundation works to “creatively inspire young people to avoid poverty through education.”

“It gives a lot of messages about the responsibility of working and doing homework and learning to be leaders with my friends and be a positive influence,” said Stoudemire.

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