Question: How to use Explore() for multiple plots

Trying to use the Explore() to parametrize a couple of plots simultaneously.

According to the help: "A plotting command to be explored can be a function call to plot, plot3d, a command in the plots package, or any user-defined procedure which returns a two- or three-dimensional plot structure or an Array of such plot structures."

However with the definitions

restart;
with(plots):
with(plottools):
Parab1 := ''plot(a*x^2, x = -1 .. 1, y = -3 .. 3)'';
Parab2 := ''plot(a*x^2+1, x = -1 .. 1, y = -3 .. 3)'';
L:=Array(1..2);
L[1]:=Parab1;L[2]:=Parab2;

I then find the following:

Explore(L[1], parameters = [a = -1.0 .. 1.0]);
gives the expected parabola, and the slider updates the parabola dynamically, as expected, and of course the same with L[2] in place of L[1]. However,

Explore(L, parameters = [a = -1.0 .. 1.0])

does not work, giving "Warning, expecting only range variable x in expression a*x^2 to be plotted but found name a". If I use display(L) in the command above, I receive two adjacent plots, as expected but they do not update as the parameter a is changed via the slider.

I'd guess I need to delay or promote variable evaluation somehow, but I can't seem to make it work. What am I missing?