NEW KIDS BOOK DEDICATED TO LEMON GROVE YOUNGSTER

Trevon Harris, killed by car in 2019, was known for kindness

Several years ago, Trevon Harris noticed a kid getting teased for his sneakers.

Trevon grabbed his new pair of Air Jordans, placed them in a backpack, and brought them to his classmate.

The story of that gift stuck with local illustrator Reggie Brown.

“He was just looking out for another kid,” Brown said in an interview. “Just so he would feel he belonged.”

Trevon was hit and killed by a car on a Lemon Grove road in 2019. He was 13. When Brown later agreed to draw a children’s book celebrating shoes, he knew whom he would dedicate it to.

“Kicks” was released last month, shortly before the anniversary of Trevon’s death, and the creators and people who knew Trevon said the book was an apt memorial.

“Kicks” opens with a salute to “the boy who walked tall through life, and once gave his kicks (Jordans!) to another kid in need.”

“Trevon D. Harris spent his thirteen years of life bringing laughter and joy to everyone he encountered,” Brown wrote. “May his memory be eternal.”

Trevon’s mother, Tanya Harris, found out about the dedication April 19, and proudly shared images of the book on her phone.

Trevon owned more than 50 pairs of sneakers, she said in a recent interview. He had Steph Curry’s, Lebron James’ — even his first baby pair were Jordans.

She remembered the morning before class she saw her son packing up the Air Jordans.

“Trey, those are brand new,” she recalled saying. “We just bought those.”

Trevon responded, “It’s OK mom, he need it more than me.”

The gift was both humbling and shocking, said Danah Smith, who ran an after-school program Trevon was a part of through Lemon Grove Academy Middle School.

“Kids at that age, they don’t do things like that,” said Smith, who now teaches and coaches basketball at Allan Hancock College. “You see a kid getting teased, you’re not gonna give your shoes up, you just walk away or you start laughing.”

In other ways the act wasn’t surprising, said Demi Brown, principal of Empower Language Academy.

“He was that integrity check,” Brown said in an interview. If a friend messed up, Trevon would call him out. If a classmate was bullied, Trevon would defend him.

The elementary school now gives an annual Trevon memorial award to students who exhibit sportsmanship, kindness and hard work, she said.

“Kicks” was published by Versify, an imprint of Harpercollins.

The free-verse poem tells readers to “be comfortable in who you are,” Van Garrett, the book’s author, said in an interview.

Garrett’s family couldn’t afford high-end footwear when growing up, outside of Houston, so he stocked up on multicolored Converse.

Although a love of shoes stayed with him through adulthood while publishing books of poetry, Garrett had never considered writing about sneakers.

That changed at a writers retreat.

A friend challenged him to tackle a topic he knew well, despite being disregarded by others. Garrett went into a room by himself, put on a jazz arrangement of Nina Simone’s “Four Women,” and banged out “Kicks” in 55 minutes.

When he read his draft aloud — the book opens with “You can’t pick kicks the way you pick sticks or stones or dinosaur bones” — friends told him he had something.

Garrett wasn’t sure. He’d never written a picture book before. Yet publishers believed in it, and one connected him with Reggie Brown.

Brown spent part of his adolescence in San Diego, and attended Southwestern College. He liked to draw, but received little formal training and never went to art school.

He was working as a data specialist for Prometheus Laboratories when the San Diego biotech company laid him off in 2018.

Adrift, he began posting art on Instagram.

An agent reached out soon after. Now he’s got multiple books under his belt, including the New York Timesbestseller “Who Are Your People?”, and he said he’s done character designs for the upcoming Disney show “Tiny Trailblazers.”

Reggie Brown will be signing books June 11 at the Lemon Grove Rec Center, during a basketball tournament held in Trevon’s honor.

REGGIE BROWN “Kicks,” a children’s book written by Van Garrett, is illustrated by San Diego artist Reggie Brown.