B A PARKER, HOST:
Heads up, folks - there are spoilers for century-old high-school literature which maybe you should read - not to shame you, but, like, all right. OK.
(SOUNDBITE OF GRAVY SONG, "WINDOWS DOWN")
PARKER: Hey, everyone. You're listening to CODE SWITCH from NPR. I'm B.A. Parker. In high school, there were books that stuck with me, that shaped me - "Night" by Elie Wiesel, a teenage boy's account of his experience in a Nazi concentration camp; "Things Fall Apart" by Chinua Achebe, about a Nigerian warrior defeated by European colonialism; "The Stranger" by Albert Camus, about an emo French guy too cool to feel or whatever. They all took place in different parts of the world and told completely different stories, but I think each of them helped turn on an empathy valve inside of me. These books helped me navigate the world, but it wasn't just the stories, which I found fascinating - it was also the way they were taught. And that got me thinking about the person who assigned all of those books to me - my high school English teacher.
Hi, Ms. Bulgaris.
LAURA BULGARIS: Hi. How are you?
PARKER: I'm OK. How are you?
BULGARIS: I'm all right. I'm just a little older than I was the last time that I saw you.
PARKER: I mean, same.
Ms. Bulgaris taught me in 10th grade honors and 11th grade IB English. From 14 to 16 years old, Ms. Bulgaris was my guide through discussions about apartheid via Nadine Gordimer and existentialism through Franz Kafka. She was my Robin Williams in "Dead Poets Society," my Whoopi Goldberg in "Sister Act 2," my Mr. Holland in "Mr. Holland's Opus."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "MR. HOLLAND'S OPUS")
RICHARD DREYFUSS: (As Glenn Holland) You already know it. It's already in your head and your fingers and your heart. You just don't trust yourself to know that.
PARKER: My personal favorite book that we read was Manuel Puig's "Kiss Of The Spider Woman" - the story of a queer man and a political prisoner sharing movies they love while confined in an Argentinian prison.
BULGARIS: Oh, I was hoping you wouldn't even bring that one up.
PARKER: Why?
BULGARIS: I don't remember it. I mean, I remember the big details, but...
PARKER: I think my favorite thing about it was it involved a lot of context clues 'cause the whole...
BULGARIS: Right.
PARKER: The whole book's in dialogue.
BULGARIS: Right. When I go back, my first unit is on - going to be pretty much a feminist unit, and over half of the students are young men, so...
PARKER: How are you feeling about that?
BULGARIS: I think it's necessary. I think it's necessary. And hopefully they'll be on board with it, so I'll just try to explain it to them that it'll make them better men if they understand it.
PARKER: I felt fortunate to have this passionate, energetic woman be my literary guide - to engage with me, to feed my nascent bookworm habit and to introduce me to all of these new cultures and ideas and worlds. She taught me that books could be heartbreaking and frustrating and absolutely confusing, but they were still the best tools I had for learning about life outside of my narrow part of Baltimore. It was a job that Ms. Bulgaris didn't take lightly, and there was a realization I had while going through all the books that we'd read. Most of them have been a part of a book ban across the United States.
BULGARIS: It seems like almost everything I teach is banned or - somewhere.
PARKER: Exactly.
BULGARIS: If you look at the banned books, it's all about LGBTQ people. It's all about people of color. How could you want to ban stories like - I mean, these marginalized groups are in need of hearing stories about themselves.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
PARKER: There are places across the U.S. that have a Ms. Bulgaris - someone who's going out of their way to introduce students to new, complex, world-changing ideas through literature. But some of those people are teaching with a hand tied behind their backs because the material they have access to is being severely restricted.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
PARKER: And so for today's show, we're going back to school, bringing you the last of our book ban series - or rather, we're looking at what access to books is looking like across the country for students, librarians and my teacher, Ms. Bulgaris.
I haven't seen or spoken to my high-school English teacher, Ms. Bulgaris, in over 20 years. She left my school after 11th grade and eventually moved back to Pennsylvania, where she still teaches now. There was a lot to catch up on, but one thing was for certain - even now, as an adult, I couldn't call her Laura. That seemed strange, so Ms. Bulgaris it is.
BULGARIS: I've been teaching a total of 29 years.
PARKER: What?
BULGARIS: This year will be 29 years.
PARKER: How does that feel?
BULGARIS: Old.
PARKER: (Laughter).
BULGARIS: For the AP class, right now, I have them, over the summer, reading "The Awakening," "A Doll's House" and "A Room Of One's Own."
PARKER: In the seven or so hours a day that school takes up in a kid's life, teachers hold rarefied air. In my mind, Ms. Bulgaris will always live within the four walls of a classroom, with a grade book and a READ poster of Orlando Bloom staring down at me, shaming me into reading Countee Cullen. It's why seeing your teacher in the supermarket always feels like a fever dream - or, say, talking to your teacher after 20 years over a Zoom call.
I remember, I think I was reading "Lolita" for fun.
(LAUGHTER)
PARKER: And you seemed disappointed - like, oh, brother, why are you going to read that? Like, I was just like - I don't know. I think I was just like, people don't want young people to read it...
BULGARIS: Oh, yeah.
PARKER: ...So I'm going to read it.
BULGARIS: Sure. There you go.
PARKER: Also, I was 15 and very silly.
BULGARIS: Hey.
PARKER: It was fine.
BULGARIS: Was it good?
PARKER: It was fine. I was like, oh, he's supposed to be a jerk. Like, he's supposed to be a horrible person.
BULGARIS: Right.
PARKER: Like, they're not promoting him being terrible. Like...
BULGARIS: I think I remember this. Now that you've said that, I...
(LAUGHTER)
PARKER: But yeah. Like, I think came into the classroom 'cause I had, like, my, like, Trapper Keeper and my, like - I'm reading "Lolita."
(LAUGHTER)
PARKER: And you were like, why?
BULGARIS: Only you. Only you.
PARKER: Like, not like you were like, like, no...
BULGARIS: Right. Right.
PARKER: ...Student should read the book.
BULGARIS: Right.
PARKER: But, like - I don't know. There were better things to read that were worth my time.
BULGARIS: Sure. I think I'm less of a snob about what to read.
PARKER: Yeah?
BULGARIS: I think. Yeah, I am, so I probably wouldn't - if someone was reading "Lolita" today, I'd probably be like, you go, girl. You know?
PARKER: (Laughter).
BULGARIS: Just go, do your thing.
PARKER: So far in her tenure, Ms. Bulgaris has only had one child exempted from a book in her class.
BULGARIS: It was "The Hobbit." I was (laughter)...
PARKER: Why "The Hobbit?"
BULGARIS: Because it was based on a religious objection. They didn't want the students to read anything with a wizard in the story.
PARKER: Oh.
BULGARIS: So I remember meeting with them and administration, and it was a very respectful conversation. So in that case, I gave them an alternate read. I don't even remember what it was, but they accepted the alternate read. And I remember, for the 2-3 weeks that we were reading "The Hobbit," the student was in the library.
PARKER: We went through books in 2-3 weeks?
BULGARIS: Some of them.
PARKER: Emotionally, it felt like a whole semester. I felt like...
BULGARIS: (Laughter).
PARKER: I felt like it was just six weeks of me reading one book. Now I know that...
BULGARIS: No.
PARKER: ...It was 2-3 weeks.
BULGARIS: "The Stranger" would have been two weeks.
PARKER: Oh. It just felt...
BULGARIS: "Metamorphosis" I probably did in one week.
PARKER: As a young person, it just felt like, eternity (laughter).
For a kid like me in Baltimore, a semester of school could feel like an eternity - just like for a kid in Donnelly, Idaho - their single-room library could feel like a castle.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
PARKER: And Sherry Scheline is the queen of that castle. She's the director of the public library in Donnelly, Idaho - population 258.
SHERRY SCHELINE: We have bounce houses that we circulate.
PARKER: Bounce houses?
SCHELINE: No joke.
PARKER: This is the best library ever. I'm sold (laughter).
SCHELINE: Yes. You can get a cotton candy machine if you so desire.
PARKER: This is an absolute fantasy for a kid. They can get all of this with their library card. And this one-room library is packed with books and Legos and American Girl dolls, and also functions as a safe space for kids.
SCHELINE: Today, if I took you outside, you would see 20 kids running around (laughter), having a camp. So yeah. And I have one sleeping on the floor right now at my feet.
PARKER: Oh, my gosh. I'm sorry. Oh, my God.
SCHELINE: Oh, no, he's out. He's sick.
(LAUGHTER)
PARKER: But all of that kid-friendliness is being threatened because Sherry has decided she needs to make this place adults-only - because, like a lot of places around the country, Idaho has a new law. It states that a parent or a child can complain about what they deem to be obscene materials in school or the public library. Now, the bill's ideas of obscene include nudity and homosexuality. If a library gets a complaint, they have 30 days to move that book into an adult-only area or be forced to pay a $250 fine. But in this one-room library, she can't curtain off the, quote, unquote, "obscene books." There's nowhere for them to go.
SCHELINE: Some of the library directors are still like, we don't know what we're going to do. Others are like, it's not a big deal because we'll just move the book from the children's section to the adult section. But then, like, are you going to move all the "Captain Underpants" books to an adult section? If you do that, how are they going to circulate? The fact that kids...
PARKER: Would that be considered harmful for children because it's a captain in his underpants?
SCHELINE: Yeah. Well, it's - like, the way the law is read, technically, it does, 'cause there's, like, farting. Yeah, it would. Under the law, a parent could bring "Captain Underpants," yeah.
PARKER: Many aspects of the bill are still confusing for Sherry and a lot of other librarians.
SCHELINE: So if it's a mere mention of homosexuality, does that mean I cannot have characters that are LGBTQ or alluding to the fact that they're LGBTQ? And, harmful to minors - what does - I mean, we, as a library, would not ever choose to have material that was harmful to minors. A lot of people, when we first announced that it was adults-only, assumed that we were getting rid of all of our children's literature - like, that we were dumping the kids' books. And it was hard to explain to people that eliminating a book from a library is censorship. So is this new, harmful to minors? Are we redefining it? The state legislature is like, no. No, we're not redefining it. But then others are - yes. Yes, we're redefining it. There's no clear answer in the legislation.
PARKER: It's about who can decide. Should it be the legislature, the librarian or the parent? There's no clear answer.
SCHELINE: My 14-year-old might perfectly be able to check out a book that your 14-year-old might not be able to. That's not for me, as a librarian, to decide. My kid has a different reading level. I let my kid read "The Hate U Give" when he was in fifth grade, and someone said to me, that book has really bad language. And I was like, great. So does this book. And I pulled another book off the shelf called "Bull," and my kid wrote in the front of the book, this book has 36 bad words.
PARKER: (Laughter).
SCHELINE: My kid can read a book with profanity and be OK. My child is also mixed-race and deserves to see himself reflected in literature and the problems that he's going through. And "The Hate U Give" was life-changing for him. It was a book that he related to. He felt - he truly felt the book. Like, it was important to him.
He also was able to appropriately discuss the book with me after and discuss, like, it's really different for Black people who live in an urban community versus a rural community. The fact that he made that observation shows me that he was mature enough to read that book because urban culture and rural culture are very, very different things. Also, his Black culture is important to him. And he saw that reflected in the book, where he doesn't always see that reflected in his own community.
PARKER: And it's books like some of the ones that have meant so much to her son that Sherry is now meant to hide from other kids.
SCHELINE: When a parent says that that has sexual content in it and so it was harmful to their child, and they go after my librarian for civil penalties - like, who wants to be a librarian in that kind of world? I mean, that's scary - to think that you could lose your house and whatever over civil penalties. And it's not even that you would win. It's that you have to get an attorney. So you're out $5,000 to retain an attorney just to protect yourself from the civil penalties of "To Kill A Mockingbird."
PARKER: So that's why Sherry chose to make her library adults-only - because of her concerns about the vagueness of the law and the heavy fines that would come with it. So when the law went into effect on July 1, a proverbial red curtain was pulled around this single-room building that is a sanctuary for so many kids in town.
SCHELINE: Little libraries are disproportionately impacted, but I think that the pushback will be a larger library has to take it on - Boise or Meridian. I mean, Boise has an attorney on retainer. Let's be honest. He's chomping at the bit to take this on.
PARKER: But in Sherry's tiny rural town, she doesn't have those kinds of resources, which is why she had to make her own workarounds to the new law. Sherry is a problem-solver. Like, when the library felt too small, she got the city to buy her tepees to teach in outside. Now, when kids can't come into the library because of the new law, she's gotten their parents to sign waivers that let the kids in.
SCHELINE: The first month that we had it, every single parent chose to waive their rights to HB710.
PARKER: I've heard you describe, with this law, feeling - like, running an adults-only library feeling like owning a liquor store. Like, how does that experience feel for you?
SCHELINE: In the beginning, I mean, that was the best explanation. And at one point, I even said, like, to a reporter - I was like, I hate this analogy. And I do. I hate it. I hate that kids can't choose their path. I feel like we're no longer a liquor store, but we're at the - we can - you know, the child can peruse down the beer and wine aisle. They just can't take it off the shelf now.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
PARKER: Coming up - a teenager fighting for her peers in Texas, one banned book at a time.
OYINDAMOLA AKINTOLA: Even with the book, you know, my teacher was talking about how they were advising her not to give it out to kids because they believed it was very harmful, I guess, with the content of the books. But we're, like, literally juniors. We're at this age. We're, I guess you can say, grown, so these contents need to be discussed either way.
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PARKER: Stay with us.
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PARKER: Parker - just Parker. CODE SWITCH.
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PARKER: So earlier this summer, you may remember that I interviewed author Mike Curato, writer of the coming-of-age graphic novel "Flamer" - one of the most banned books in America. And he told me about a group of young people who are fighting to give their peers access to the books that adults have been fighting to get banned. The group is based in Texas, where book restrictions are particularly strict. Now, this led me to Oyindamola Akintola, a 17-year-old high-school senior in Houston. She's really into comics.
AKINTOLA: Mangas, manhuas (ph), most of them. Like...
PARKER: That counts.
AKINTOLA: ...Cartoons. Yeah.
PARKER: And she's had a busy summer.
AKINTOLA: So at the beginning of, like, June, I went out to Iowa for a speech and debate national competition. And then I came back to Houston, and then I hopped on a plane again to go to Orlando, Fla., for FBLA tournament nationals. And I just came back yesterday.
PARKER: FBLA, for those who don't know, is Future Business Leaders of America. Oyindamola is certainly on that track. She's also a member of SEAT, short for Students Engaged in Advancing Texas - an organization run by young people focused on policymaking in the state of Texas. The group gives out banned books to students all over the state, and they're lobbying for their peers by talking to representatives about the importance of trusting young people to know what they actually need in schools and libraries. And Oyindamola has been tasked with a pretty big role.
You're the Save the Books leader. What does that mean?
AKINTOLA: So basically, what I am is I am a teen leader. So basically, what we do is we have different projects at hand under the note of advocating against book bans. So what me and my partner - what we do is - basically, we run a podcast under Save the Books Social, and we basically talk to, you know, student leaders that have been advocating against a book ban. We talk to lawyers about, you know - how does book bans affect the First Amendment? Or, how does it affect, you know, any governmental, I guess you can say, laws? We want to talk and engage more people in the book-ban conversation.
PARKER: The book-ban conversation in Texas came to a head in 2023, when Governor Greg Abbott signed Texas House Bill 900 into law. It was called the Restricting Explicit and Adult Designated Educational Resources - or the READER Act. The act is meant to regulate books sold to or included in public school libraries, particularly those deemed sexually explicit.
AKINTOLA: One book that I read that really stuck out to me would probably be "The Kite Runner." It's a pretty good book.
PARKER: Y'all read "The Kite Runner" in school?
AKINTOLA: Yeah, we read "The Kite Runner" in school.
PARKER: "The Kite Runner" is a sweeping novel set in Kabul, Afghanistan. It's about two boys from different class backgrounds who grow up together, and their friendship takes a turn when one of the boys is sexually assaulted.
AKINTOLA: When I read it, I bawled my eyes out. It was really emotional. And I even watched the movie 'cause I believe they had, like, a movie out. But it was a really great book. And, you know, I'm a really - I'm a very emotional person, so that really struck me hard - a lot of the events that went on in the book. So even with the book, you know, my teacher was talking about how they were advising her not to give it out to kids because they believed it was very harmful, I guess, with the content of the books. But we're, like, literally juniors. We're at this age. We're, I guess you can say, grown, so these contents need to be discussed either way.
PARKER: So did you feel like you were grown enough to read "The Kite Runner?"
AKINTOLA: Well, not grown in a sense. But it's like, with the current climate of the world, I think that, you know, reading "The Kite Runner" is the least of your worries when it comes to, like, being exposed to content that harsh. I just think that it's just informational, and it's something - an example of a book that needs to be shared out to kids of our age because it provides a lot of different perspective that, if you have not grown up with that kind of content, you would not understand.
PARKER: The READER Act was taken to the 5th Circuit Court in Texas, where a lot of the wind has been taken out of the sails of the bill. A lot of the harsher language is gone. But one thing that still frustrates a lot of the young adults about the bill and this fight is the conflation of different groups of children. "The Kite Runner" is for high-school students, not preschoolers, but the bans don't make a lot of room for nuance and discernment. So that fight that adults are having about them already feels in bad faith to students like Oyindamola. She brought up Moms for Liberty as one example.
AKINTOLA: They're the ones perpetuating these book bans in the first place, so they're the ones advocating to these school boards that these books need to be banned for the safety of our children.
PARKER: How does it feel to be met with, like, this kind of brick wall of adults who say that they know better than you?
AKINTOLA: Honestly, I don't take them to mind because if - I don't know. I want to feel like, at your grown age, if you're actually arguing with a teenager on how they feel like, you know, they're supposed to be represented, I just don't value your opinion. I just don't - I guess you can say I don't value those type of opinions. And I normally discard them because, you know, you're obviously bored. Let's just say it.
PARKER: (Laughter).
AKINTOLA: When that happens, I honestly just focus positively 'cause I know there's a lot more adults that are, you know, willingly involved in this process than there are those that are negatively - you know, affect me. So I really just, you know, discard those kind of, you know, negative, you know, opinions or emotions.
PARKER: Texas is your home. What do you want Texas to look like?
AKINTOLA: Well, OK. From my dream, in my fantasy world, I see Texas being a state that focuses more on advancing education, providing opportunities for people to grow and for identities to actually be shared, instead of, you know, trying to silence people with things like book bans. Like, that's what I would say I want Texas to look a lot like in the future.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
PARKER: I didn't realize that what I had for those two years in high school was a bit like Oyindamola's fantasy - adults who were focused on advancing my education or nourishing my relationship with books instead of censoring them or letting my interests and excitement be a driver in the literature I chose to engage with. Now, I know that I romanticized those years in Ms. Bulgaris' class. But it turns out, that time really was pretty special - to have a teacher see me - which made her leaving all the more bittersweet.
I think it was your last day as my teacher, and you were packing up all of your books and all your things. You wrote me a list of movies to see and books to read. So you told me to see "Harold And Maude," and you told me to see "Billy Elliot." And you told me to read "Their Eyes Were Watching God," and you gave me your used copy of "The Best Of Roald Dahl" that I still have.
BULGARIS: (Crying) Aww.
PARKER: Oh, no.
BULGARIS: No, this is - I'm getting emotional.
PARKER: Why?
BULGARIS: Now, did you do all that? What did you think of...
PARKER: I did.
BULGARIS: ..."Harold And Maude?"
PARKER: I love it. It got me - I became, like, a big Hal Ashby fan 'cause of you (laughter). I watched "The Landlord." I watched "The Last Detail." I watched all these movies 'cause of you.
(LAUGHTER)
BULGARIS: You taught film. You ended up teaching film for a while, didn't you?
PARKER: I ended up teaching film at Morgan.
BULGARIS: Excellent.
PARKER: And - but yeah, and I still - you made me a Roald Dahl defender.
BULGARIS: Yeah. There's a Roald Dahl story I still teach - "Beware Of The Dog," it's called. "Beware Of The Dog."
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PARKER: Not to get all saccharine here, but it's kind of appropriate that, of all the Roald Dahl stories that Ms. Bulgaris would teach, it would be "Beware Of The Dog." It's about a British World War II pilot being cared for in what he thinks to be a British hospital, only for the doctors to be Germans in disguise, gaslighting him - only for it to reinforce for him who he really is and what he needs to do to protect himself. It's about having faith in who you are and your convictions, which is such a high-school English teacher lesson - but one that, even as an adult, I've still got to keep relearning. So once again, Ms. Bulgaris was teaching me.
This was a very, I guess, unique opportunity to tell you just thank you for engaging with me and, I guess, nurturing me and, like, trusting me as a teenager because it meant a lot. And, like, I remember it all these years ago, and that it kind of - like, it informed the literature that I sought out as a young person. And even now, you have, like, a real, strong legacy with me. And I just wanted to just thank you so much for that 'cause I was a weird kid. And to have a teacher that championed that meant a lot.
BULGARIS: Well, first, I will say the weird kids always gravitate towards me for some reason.
(LAUGHTER)
PARKER: I get that.
BULGARIS: Still. Still.
PARKER: I get that.
BULGARIS: No.
(LAUGHTER)
BULGARIS: But no, on a serious note, I can't tell you how much getting your email - what it's meant to me, as I'm getting close to the end of my career and having all these more existential thoughts and thoughts about the future and legacy and what you leave behind and, like, worrying that, oh, I should have tried to publish all these things that I could have, and I didn't. And what is - what am I leaving here? And then you sent that email. And I don't want to get choked up about it, but for you to even remember, like, what we read and that list that I gave you, and just to remember me fondly - and that if it honestly inspired you, even in 1%, and everyone that you are going to impact now through your podcast - is it "The Hobbit," or is it from one of the other "Lord Of The Rings"? - that, like, even the smallest person can change the course of the world or something like that.
So I feel like I'm pretty - in the grand scheme of things, a pretty insignificant blip in the human race. But just asking to talk to me again and remembering these things that, like - wow. Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity and to be able to catch up with you in your life, where you are, as this thriving adult. It's just beautiful. It's a beautiful thing.
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PARKER: And that's our show. You can follow us on Instagram at @nprcodeswitch. If email is more your thing, ours is codeswitch@npr.org. And subscribe to the podcast on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also subscribe to the CODE SWITCH newsletter by going to npr.org/codeswitchnewsletter. And just a reminder that signing up for CODE SWITCH+ is a great way to support our show in public media, and you'll get to listen to every episode sponsor-free. So please, go find out more at plus.npr.org/codeswitch.
This episode was produced by me and Christina Cala. It was edited by Leah Donnella and Courtney Stein. Our engineer was Gilly Moon. And a big shout-out to the rest of the CODE SWITCH massive - Xavier Lopez, Jess Kung, Dalia Mortada, Veralyn Williams, Jasmine Romero, Lori Lizarraga and Gene Demby. I'm B.A. Parker. Hydrate.
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