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I remember studying “Paradise Lost” in school and how the professor explained that the devil was Milton’s coolest character, by design.

Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’ ... is not immaterial to the world we were trying to create in Barbie Land.

I have discovered many wonderful books, mostly in the young adult category, by reading news stories about what’s being banned in public schools these days: “Gender Queer,” the riveting, upsetting graphic novel about the nonbinary author’s journey of self-discovery; “Dear Martin,” in which a Black teenager who is wrongfully arrested while trying to help his drunk ex-girlfriend get home writes an imaginary letter to Martin Luther King Jr.; and “Paradise Lost,” John Milton’s 17th century epic poem about the fall of Adam and Eve.

At the end of last year, according to the Orlando Sentinel, “Paradise Lost” was one of 673 titles removed from public school classroom shelves in an Orlando-area district in response to new state laws that require librarians and teachers to review all classroom books and banish ones that are pornographic or depict “sexual conduct.”

Just think how much discomfort — and enlightenment — “Paradise Lost’s” most famous line, uttered by that great fictional character Satan, delivers: “Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.”