☀️ Good Sunday morning. Yacob here. Hope you're enjoying your weekend.

• Sounds like: "Ant Pile," Dominic Fike

📆 Programming note: We're off Monday for Juneteenth and will be back to your inbox Tuesday.

Today's newsletter is 724 words, a 3-minute read.

Laurie and Teresa Rodriguez spent their childhood in Tampa's historic Ybor City shopping at local businesses, eating Cuban sandwiches and reading.

• "It's an important part of our history," Laurie told Axios. "We just love Ybor."

What's happening: Now, they want to share their love with others by opening a local bookstore in the historic district called Bookends: Literature and Libations.

• The sisters secured a storefront in 2022 — a dilapidated bungalow built over 100 years ago — and have been renovating the space for their brick-and-mortar debut later this year.
• In the meantime, they've taken Bookends on the road in their so-called bookmobile. It appeared at Six Ten Brewing earlier in June and will pop up at Circa 1949 on June 25.

The big picture: The bookstore will open against the backdrop of curriculum wars in Florida that have seen classic books at the center of fierce school board debates and, in some cases, removed from libraries.

• PEN America, a nonprofit that advocates for free expression, estimated more than 300 books had been banned in Florida schools. The sisters told Axios that push further underscores the need for independent bookstores.
• Laurie said literature has the distinctive ability to instill empathy in others, a trait that she says our society is increasingly becoming deficient of.

What they're saying: "We want the bookstore to be a place for education, literature, and the exchange of ideas," Laurie told Axios. "People crave to be out with other people in a safe space and evolve."

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🎒Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill last week aimed at overhauling the selection process for the superintendent of Hernando County School District.

🏳️‍🌈 The seventh anniversary of the Pulse shooting showed how far Florida's political pendulum has swung in just four years — with DeSantis having severed his allyship with the LGBTQ+ community.

🏆 It was a rough week for Miami sports fans, but their misery allows us to lay claim to Tampa Bay being Titletown, Florida.

🛥️ In the year since Tampa's Litter Skimmer launched, the boat collected around 26,500 pounds of garbage out of the Hillsborough River and surrounding channels.

What we're watching: Florida's Department of Education is gearing up for another curriculum battle with the College Board after the nonprofit rejected requests to remove LGBTQ+ subjects from an Advanced Placement course.

👋 Yacob here. It's strange now, looking back at how difficult it once was to talk to people considering what I do for a living. But I still remember that first day of school at the playground and feeling anxious and afraid.

• That's when I saw my father — who decided to spend his lunch break watching over me, making sure I was OK. He gave me a smile that let me know I could do it.
• I've seen that look countless times throughout the years, and it never fails to remind me that someone believes in me, even when I don't believe in myself.

👋 Hey, Selene here. My dad went from being a chief homicide detective to my "Sesame Street" buddy since my mom worked long shifts as a physician's assistant.

• He was on chauffeur duty for decades and there wasn't a single day I left for school without him making me breakfast.
• I've credited my mom and our Scrabble games for my love of words, but it was my dad who taught me how to read. And no matter how old I get, I still love learning from him.

👋 Kathryn here. I've been eating a lot of grits lately, not the instant kind, but the stone-ground variety that takes almost an hour to cook. The meal reminds me of my dad, a Charleston, S.C., native-turned-Florida-man who always made sure this grits fanatic got her share.

• That's my dad, always looking out. He's been there through every life milestone and meltdown (see below 😭), grounding me and making me laugh when I start to "awfulize," a word he made up to describe that feeling when your worries spin out of control.

Get lost in Wes Anderson’s worlds, starting from his 1996 debut to his latest release.

Visit Tampa Theatre to enjoy...

• His older films, like “Rushmore,” from June 16–21.
• The “Asteroid City” premiere on June 23.
• The (free!) Franklin Street Block Party before the premiere.

Plan your visit.

Axios Tampa Bay reader Barbara-Anne Herron captured this image of a sunset casting a swirl of warm hues over the skies above the Courtney Campbell Causeway near Clearwater.

• Have you captured any candids? Hit reply, and submit your best photos to our Taken from Tampa Bay series. We'll feature them each Sunday!

See Wes Anderson’s distinctive storytelling — and an A-list cast — in his desert-based “Asteroid City” at the historic Tampa Theatre starting June 23.

Worth a mention: The Theatre’s week-long “Wes-rospective” from June 16-21 revisits his films along the road that led to this one.

Get your tickets.

📖 Yacob finished Keziah Weir's "The Mythmakers," and now he's got a book-sized void in his life. Any suggestions?

👨‍👩‍👦 Kathryn is wishing her older brother, Fred, who became a dad this week, a happy first Father's Day!

🌴 Selene is returning after some days off.

This newsletter was edited by Ross Terrell and copy edited by Carolyn DiPaolo.