Toby Price was the assistant principal at Gary Road Elementary School in Mississippi, but was fired after a book he read to a second grade class was deemed "inappropriate."
When a guest reader didn't show up, Price was tasked with reading to the class, and grabbed a personal favorite from his collection titled I Need A New Butt.
Though the book has a suggested reading age of 6 to 10, and despite the fact that Price had read the book before in another district, he was fired for, according to WLBT, showing "a lack of professionalism and impaired judgment."
A synopsis from the book's publisher reads: "A young boy suddenly notices a big problem—his butt has a huge crack! So he sets off to find a new one. Will he choose an armor-plated butt? A rocket butt? Find out in this quirky tale of a tail, which features hilarious rhymes and delightful illustration."
Price is hoping to overturn their decision, get his job back, and teach others that funny books are needed in education.
He said, "If you don't let kids see funny and silly books, they're not going to stick around long enough to find out that books can be other things than funny and silly. You have to hook them with the funny and silly stuff. And that's what I've always done. That's what this book was for.
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