“The Book Fair for Poor Kids Was Terrible” — Dad Goes All Out for Daughter’s Book Fair

When you're a poor kid, there are certain situations that remind you of just how poor you are. Sometimes, it's at school drop-off and pickup: other kids parents' are rolling up in new model cars while your mom or dad roll up in the beater station wagon that always smells like motor oil.

Visiting the museum and realizing that other kids were given some pocket cash to buy something at the gift shop is another reminder as you stood there and maybe legitimately wondered if you could stuff that Smithsonian stuff T-Rex down your pants without anyone noticing.

But there's probably one school experience that really shoved in the face of every poor kid just how little money they had — and that was the book fair. Watching other kids fill their hands up with all quasi-educational goodies as you maybe had enough cash to get a book mark, or nothing at all, sucked.

And one dad, who posts under the TikTok account @theblackbarrys, shared that he knew this awful feeling all too well. And he was going to make sure that his daughter, when the Scholastic Book Fair came to her school, wouldn't know what that felt like. He posted about her book fair in a series of videos, the first of which he records from his car.

"So today is the book fair at my daughter's school. Now if y'all was a little broke kid like me, the book fair was a f------ nightmare. I had to watch all them little kids get the scratch and sniff erasers. The bookmarks, the post — not my baby!"

In what is presumably a bid to reconcile with his own childhood, the man went on to say that he was going to make sure his daughter wasn't going to have to worry about not being able to get anything and everything her heart desires at the fair.

"My baby getting everything she wants. I told her, 'Circle what you want, baby, and Daddy gonna get it for you.'"

The video then cuts to him showing off the sheet of items that his daughter marked off, and it's clear she took what her father said literally.

"Man, she went crazy, look at that. One, two, three, hold on ... flip the page. Four, five, six, seven, hold on — eight, nine, one more, 10, 11, oh she want the two posters, we got it," he said, showing off all of the selections she made for the book fair.

"Now I'm gonna tell you right now she's getting all of it and some!" he vows into the camera lens. "So at her school, they don't do cash — you can't hand your kid cash to take to the book fair. They have an app where you load up the money onto their cart and they go shopping and if they run low on money the teacher can text you and be like, 'Hey, they need more bread.'"

His video transitions to an extreme close-up of his face where he states that his daughter isn't going to encounter any problems when it comes to book fair funding: "My baby's not even gonna have that moment where she runs out of money! B--- I'm not even giving you the chance to make fun of my baby!" he says, pointing and screaming to what seems to be an imaginary kid.

"I ain't gonna lie, I put like $200 on that ... go crazy for me! Go crazy for Daddy, baby, just do it for me one time!"

He says toward the end of the clip that he expected his daughter to make it home soon: "My wife went to go pick her up, let's see what she brings home, what did she get, what'd she spend that bread on?"

Folks who saw his clip asked for a "book fair haul" video, and he obliged in a follow-up video that begins with him sitting on the couch. He calls out to his daughter, "Nala, come show me what you got from the book fair." His daughter can be heard laughing off camera as he takes her backpack.

"Let's see what you got, I put crazy money on that card, let's see..."

His daughter can be heard saying off camera, "Three."

He looks at her, surprised. "You got three things from the book fair?"

"Yes, I wanted three."

"These are the only three books you got from the book fair?" he asks as he takes the books out.

"So all you got was Mario Kart..." he says, showing off the book. His daughter then says the name of the other book he's holding in his hands: "The Old Lady Eating a Worm."

"And Bluey?" he says, holding up the third book that his daughter purchased from the book fair. He then starts looking through the backpack. "Where's the, where's the pencil sharpeners? Where's the..."

She responded, "They didn't give me pencil sharpeners!"

"Where's the scratch and sniff erasers, where's the colored pencils?"

"They didn't give me any of that!"

"Where's the bookmarks?!" he asks, putting his hand to his face in frustration and grimacing.

"They didn't give me any of that," she explains to her father.

"Where are the posters?" Nala's mom says off camera.

"Give me that, give me that catalog," the father says to someone off camera, who hands him the book fair promotional flier.

He presents the catalog to his daughter, "You circled 11 things in this catalog, Nala. So you spent $4.99 on Bluey, you spent $6.99 on the worms lady, you spent $5.99 on Super Mario, and that's all you got. You didn't even get the posters ... look at how many, you circled one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, you circled like nine or ten things and you only got three things!"

"But you didn't get nothing for me, for Mommy, for sister," he tells her daughter. He then explains to his partner off camera why he wishes she brought home more stuff: "I put almost $200 on that card. She had like $200 in her account."

Her mom responds, "She spent like $20, I checked it."

"You knew?!" he said, before telling Nala he's going to teach her what a book fair haul is supposed to look like.

"Me and Mommy are going with you tomorrow and I'mma show you how to properly shop at the book fair. 'Cause I couldn't do it so I'mma show you," he says before the video ultimately cuts out.

While there were a few commenters who applauded the scarred-by-book-fair dad for going out of his way to "heal our childhood trauma," others stated that they applauded how "frugal" his daughter was being.