Abbott Elementary – Books

By starrymag | March 12, 2025

By: Atiya Irvin-Mitchell

 

Gregory (Tyler James Williams) is the substitute teacher for music class. He has the idea to start the class by letting the students sing a classic song and quickly regrets his choice when the kids’ definition of “oldies” includes 50 Cent, Rihanna and Lil Wayne. Anything the kids’ 30-year-old parents listened to growing up is old now, which makes Gregory decide to forgo the plan and have the kids play “Hot Cross Buns” on their recorders.

 

In the library, Ava (Janelle James) is returning her copy of the book Of Mice and Men and telling Rosalind (Cree Summer) the librarian she enjoyed the book. Then, Barbara (Sheryl Lee Ralph) comes in to collect the books for her class to read and Rosalind offers to have the kindergarteners come in for storytime because since Krystal (Raven Goodwin) is volunteering she has some downtime. Barbara thanks her for being a parent volunteer, but then things take a turn when Krystal notices that the other book Ava had is called, The Sassy Wizard Kid. Ava likes the book, but Krystal isn’t a fan. The first problem, according to Krystal, is that it has magic which she doesn’t approve of as a Christian and she finds the main character disrespectful. Barbara tries to intervene, as a Christian who loves stories about magic, but her arguments fall on deaf ears. Rosalind tells Krystal they’ll make sure her daughter Tamika doesn’t read the book, but Krystal says she doesn’t want it in the library.

 

Elsewhere, Melissa (Lisa Ann Walter) bumps into Gary (Bruno Amato) for the first time since she turned down his proposal. He describes it as the most embarrassing moment of his life, but on a positive note, he shares that he’s engaged to someone else. Not only that, but he wants Melissa to come to the wedding and Melissa agrees so long as Lucy doesn’t mind.

 

In the teacher’s lounge, Gregory gives Janine (Quinta Brunson) and Jacob (Chris Perfetti) a scare when they notice that he is on LinkedIn. At first, they worry he’s planning to leave Abbott, but in truth, his rent is just going up and he has a girlfriend. The girlfriend in question doesn’t immediately understand the correlation but then realizes that when she was with Tariq (Zack Fox) she paid for everything. Melissa overhears this and tells him that needing a second job is a teacher’s lot in life. Barbara says that she used to teach night school and Melissa used to be a pool shark.

 

Later, Rosalind is reading to the kids, and Ava is annoyed because Krystal sent her a scathing email about removing The Sassy Wizard Kid from the library. She tells Barbara that Krystal threatened to take the matter to the district and since the district already isn’t thrilled with Abbott and Krystal’s the PTA’s vice president, Ava doesn’t want to risk it.

 

When Janine checks in with Gregory about the job hunt and Gregory says it seems promising. However, he points out that she has a developing situation. Vivian (JaBria McCullum) is braiding Charlie’s (Pier Peters) hair. This seems to be a common occurrence because Janine reminds Vivian that she’s told her to stop touching Charlie’s hair. Gregory interjects and asks Vivian how she’d react if Charlie touched her hair and Vivian says she’d smack him. Janine uses the moment as an example of how much work teaching is because she doesn’t know how Gregory will handle the kids and a second job.

 

Gregory says it’ll be fine and when Mr. Johnson (William Stanford Davis) overhears that he’s still hunting he suggests Gregory give rideshare a shot. But, as Gregory has a Masters degree, he feels he’s overqualified for Uber and Lyft. Yet Mr. Johnson points out that he needs the money so qualifications might have to take a backseat.

 

Jacob and Melissa talk about Gary’s wedding and who her date could be. She advises against bringing Sweet Cheeks, but Melissa was considering bringing Captain Robinson anyway. Jacob wasn’t aware that their relationship had leveled up to wedding date territory. However, Melissa says their relationship is so casual it’d be like bringing a friend. Still, Jacob points out that there is nothing casual about traveling out of town for a wedding with someone. But Melissa says that Captain Robinson is still saved as Fireman #2 in her phone, so she thinks they’re good.

 

An unspecified amount of time later Tariq swings by the library to yell. He’s angry that “The Sassy Wizard Kid” has been banned from the library because his “son” was excited to read the book to him at bedtime. When Barbara questions why he’s not the one doing the reading, he says it’s because he gets tired. At any rate, since Tariq is the president of the PTA the Abbott Elementary staff can’t just tune him out. Ava says it’s only one book, but since one book won’t matter Tariq demands that another not-child-friendly book be added. Barbara says this is why they shouldn’t allow parents to dictate what books are in the library. To avoid more hassle Ava promises to find a way for The Sassy Wizard Kid to stay on the shelves.  Tariq is happy with the outcome and leaves and then Barbara suggests that they tell the parents that they need to trust them to choose what books are appropriate. Although Ava feels the cloak and daggers approach is better, Barbara; however, thinks this is going to end badly.

 

Gregory’s job search is not going well despite his Masters degree and he’s in denial about it. Melissa invites Captain Robinson (Mike O’Malley) to Gary’s wedding, but he can’t go. The reason he can’t go is because he’s going to the symphony with another woman. He assumes this won’t be a big deal, because Melissa wanted things to be casual and Melissa agrees that that’s the way she wanted things. But, when she hangs out she seems a little bothered by the idea of him seeing other people.

 

Barbara is reading “The Very Busy Spider” to her class in the library and Andrew returns a book to Rosalind. He tells Rosalind that he really liked the part where the main character says, “Abracasnapra,” an unmistakable catchphrase from The Sassy Wizard Kid, that Krystal isn’t too happy to hear. When she asks Andrew (Abraham Jason) where he got the book, he points her in the direction of a book speakeasy behind a curtain on a shelf. When she asks who is responsible for the shelf, Tariq pops up from behind a cart and says he’s responsible. Barbara asks them not to cause a scene in front of the kids and says they all helped create the shelf. Krystal says she wasn’t bluffing and will go to the district and the media if necessary.

 

Barbara tells both Krystal and Tariq to knock it off, because they’re behaving worse than the children. Krystal and Tariq surprise Barbara by agreeing, they’ve concluded that this is a problem for the teachers to solve. With this in mind, they say it’s up to them to figure out a solution to this problem that will make both Krystal and Tariq happy.

 

Good news: Gregory has a new part-time job. Bad news: starting said job means he can’t take couples pictures at the mall with Janine. He tells Janine and Mr. Johnson that he’s working at the front desk at the gym.

 

In the teacher’s lounge, Barbara is telling an enthralled Jacob the story of Moses. Her delivery of the parting of the Red Sea makes Jacobb want to read The Bible and he asks for no more spoilers. This conversation is interrupted by a very angry Melissa who rants about a series of sports teams’ losses. But, Barbara and Jacob can detect that this is probably deeper than the Phillies and encourage Melissa to tell them what’s wrong. Melissa admits that she’s upset that Captain Robinson can’t be her date to Gary’s wedding because he has a date with someone else. Although, she doesn’t know why she cares. Barbara asks her point blank if she wants him to see other people or not. The answer is no, so Barbara says she wants to go steady.

 

The chaos keeps coming at Abbott and the library remains at the center of it. A student informs Ava and Barbara that the library is closed. When they ask Rosalind why, she explains that she is getting a lot of irate emails and threats from her parents. She can’t run a library under these conditions so until they resolve things, the library will remain closed. So, for the sake of the library and the students Barbara and Ava agree that they need to call a PTA meeting.

 

When the PTA meeting in question is happening, Barbara has the floor and says the book issue has gotten out of control, so they’re going to put it to a vote. It’s a tie between parents who don’t mind the book being available and those who want it banned. One parent says if “The Sassy Wizard Kid” stays they should add Steve Harvey sketches to the collection. Another parent doesn’t want to stop at one book, they have a problem with “Clifford the Big Red Dog” too. This leads to another argument about which books should stay and which should go. While the parents are arguing, Janine wonders if her mediation skills can’t be put to good use. Instead, she gets sent outside to deal with a pizza man who won’t come into the school.

 

Janine tries to reason with the pizza guy over text message and the meeting is interrupted when Mr. Johnson accidentally hits the fire alarm.  The pizza man very reluctantly comes inside and is Gregory as it turns out. Janine isn’t bothered by Gregory being a delivery person than she is about him lying to her. He apologizes and explains that he just felt embarrassed after insisting he was overqualified earlier. Janine tells him there is nothing to be embarrassed about because it’s honest work. And Mr. Johnson adds at least he doesn’t have to drive people around. Except it turns out that he is working as an Uber/Lyft driver as well.

 

With no decision made on The Sassy Wizard Kid and thirty-four other books banned, the PTA meeting is not going well. Rosalind points out that many of the books some parents are suggesting they ban are classics that kids can get a lot out of reading. She calls on the parents to remember how reading shaped them when they were children. In the middle of this Captain Robinson appears likely in response to the false alarm. Melissa goes to talk to him and admits she asked Mr. Johnson to do it. Then she admits she doesn’t want him to see other people. Captain Robinson agrees to be exclusive and says he doesn’t like music. He has to leave, but before he departs, he asks Melissa not to directly or indirectly pull any more fire alarms to get his attention.

 

As the requests to ban books continue, Barbara has enough and says you can find a problem with any book but there are so many ideas the kids will never learn if parents ban everything. Ava points out that in The Sassy Wizard Kid the main character almost gives up but uses a growth mindset spell. Krystal agrees that that’s a positive lesson. Still, she didn’t want her daughter to read a book that encouraged disrespect. Barbara suggests that this can be remedied by talking to her.  Since Barbara has had Tamika in her class, she points out that Tamika is a very smart little girl and can handle tough conversations. Krystal agrees and admits that maybe she took things a little too far. She agrees to talk to Tamika and that the library should re-open without outside interference.

 

Then Barbara tries to suggest that everyone read The Bible and Ava suggests that everyone run before she starts quoting specific verses. Sometime later we see Rosalind reading The Sassy Wizard Kid to a group of adults who seem to really be enjoying the story.