Finding the next Z-a-i-l-a at the Scripps National Spelling Bee

Driving the news: The Bee is back this week, with preliminary rounds set to start Tuesday at National Harbor in Maryland. Five competitors from Louisiana are among the 231-speller field, including:

• Nayara de Silva-Ahmed, a seventh grader from Metairie Park Country Day School in Old Metairie.
• Rishaan Reddy, a fifth grader from LSU Laboratory School in Baton Rouge.

Why it matters: The children, we've heard, are our future.

Zoom in: Avant-garde, now 16, has become a young New Orleans icon.

• In early May she published a book with a title that's a light through these troubling times: "It's Not Bragging If It's True: How To Be Awesome at Life." It became a New York Times bestseller on the week of May 21.
• She's also a celebrated basketball wizard who set the Guinness World Record for most bounce juggles in one minute and most basketballs dribbled simultaneously by one person (six).
• She's also done some acting, appearing in the 2022 film "Hustle."

• One national publication called her, in a bold-faced headline, "the greatest American since Abraham Lincoln," and who are we to argue?

What she's writing: Some wisdom from her book's first chapter:

• "I'm sure lots of people get great at things by hurting people, stepping on people, and thinking only about themselves. Pause and ask yourself: 'Do I really want to be that person? Is that what will make me happy in the end?'"

What's next: We'll see if the next Zaila is in this year's Bee. The preliminaries run today from 8am to 6:30pm on ION Plus, Bounce XL or spellingbee.com.

• Quarterfinals and semifinals are Wednesday.
• The finals are scheduled for 7-9pm on Thursday.