Skip to main content
Displaying 1 of 1
Once upon a Tim
2022
Availability
Annotations

With no knightly experience but plenty of pluck and an impressive vocabulary, a twelve-year-old peasant, hoping to improve his station in life, volunteers to help a cowardly prince and his not very powerful wizard rescue a princess from an evil, foul-smelling monster. - (Baker & Taylor)

This first book in a hilarious new series follows Tim, a peasant with big dreams of being a knight, as he finally gets the opportunity to change his station in life when he joins the quest to rescue a princess. 200,000 first printing. Simultaneous eBook. Illustrations. - (Baker & Taylor)

Join New York Times bestselling author Stuart Gibbs in this first book in a hilarious, highly illustrated new middle grade series about a peasant boy who wants to be a knight, perfect for fans of Max & the Midknights.

Tim is just a peasant, but he dreams big. He wants more out of life than to grow up to be a woodsman like his father. Unfortunately, the only route to success in the kingdom of Wyld is to be born a prince. Still, Tim is determined. He is brave and clever and always tries to do the right thing—even though he rarely gets the credit for it.

Then news spreads that Princess Grace of the neighboring kingdom has been abducted by the evil Stinx and Prince Ruprecht needs a legion of knights to join him on his quest to rescue her. Tim finally has the lucky break he’s been waiting for, the opportunity to change his station in life. And even though he doesn’t know how to ride a horse or wield anything more deadly than a water bucket, he’s going to do whatever it takes to make sure his dream becomes a reality. - (Simon and Schuster)

Author Biography

Stuart Gibbs is the New York Times bestselling author of the Charlie Thorne series, FunJungle series, Moon Base Alpha series, Once Upon a Tim series, and Spy School series. He has written screenplays, worked on a whole bunch of animated films, developed TV shows, been a newspaper columnist, and researched capybaras (the world’s largest rodents). Stuart lives with his family in Los Angeles. You can learn more about what he’s up to at StuartGibbs.com.

Stacy Curtis is the illustrator of The 7 Habits of Happy Kids series by Sean Covey and the Once Upon a Tim series by bestselling author Stuart Gibbs. He lives with his wife and dog in Oak Lawn, Illinois. - (Simon and Schuster)

Large Cover Image
Trade Reviews

Booklist Reviews

Tim and his friend Belinda (disguised as a boy), two peasants during the Middle Ages, seize an opportunity to become knights by accompanying a cowardly prince and his ineffectual wizard on an expedition to save a princess from the dreaded Stinx that has captured her. After an action-packed journey through the Forest of Doom, down The River of Doom, and across the Chasm of Doom, they reach the Stinx's lair. Gibbs peppers his prose with entertaining side comments as well as "IQ boosters," explaining terms such as malodorous, iconoclast, and infinitesimal, while maintaining the pace of the narrative. This giddy romp through a medieval setting, complete with menacing trolls and gigantic, bloodthirsty butterflies, is the start of a promising series from the author of Spy School (2012) and its sequels. Grades 2-5. Copyright 2022 Booklist Reviews.

Kirkus Reviews

Thinking that it's better to be fake knights than real peasants, Tim and his best buddy, Belinda, sign up to rescue a captured princess. Unaware that they've been snookered into a dastardly scheme, the two youngsters hear that Princess Grace from the next kingdom over has been carried off in the claws of a fearsome and funky "stinx" and volunteer to accompany (reputedly) brave and noble Prince Ruprecht and his (reputedly) powerful magician Nerlim on a rescue mission. Accompanied by village idiot Ferkle, whose habit of shoving mud in his pants effectively lowers the level of humor even further, the two ersatz knights weather the Forest of Doom, the River of Doom, and a "troll bridge" across the Chasm of Doom despite a suspicious lack of assistance from either the prince or the magician…and arrive to discover that neither the stinx nor the princess is quite as expected either. In fact, the princess ends up being the rescuer ("That's what you call irony," she comments) when Ruprecht and Nerlim announce their intention to seize her and do away with any inconvenient witnesses. Tim and Belinda are rewarded with promotions for their efforts; readers will come away with both a cogent warning from Gibbs about the dangers of falling for fake news and better vocabularies due to his penchant for flagging significant words like gullible and malodorous in the narrative and then pausing to define and use them in sample sentences. Along with a full-spread map, Curtis supplies frequent pen-and-ink sketches of the cast in comical poses and straits. The races and ethnicities of the characters are not specified in the text, though cover art depicts characters of various skin tones. Budding heroes defeat class and gender expectations as well as the occasional monster in this wry outing. (Fantasy. 8-12) Copyright Kirkus 2022 Kirkus/BPI Communications. All rights reserved.

Kirkus Reviews

Princess Grace of Merryland needs rescuing again, forcing two young knights-in-training to face a series of challenges, from hungry cave sharks to a minotaur named Chad. Actually, Princess Grace is perfectly capable of rescuing herself—again: see Once Upon a Tim (2022)—except that this time, kidnappers have stashed her in a room that's locked and bolted on the outside…and in the middle of a maze billed, supposedly, as "the most complex and dastardly labyrinth in the world." So it is that former peasants Tim and his more capable friend Bull—otherwise known as Belinda when she's not disguised as a boy—plunge into a mess of dark and bewildering tunnels, armed with a ball of twine provided by the surprisingly sapient village idiot Ferkle, to face a series of deadly threats…though the most legendary of all turns out to be an amiable monster with the body of a bull and the head of, well, a dude. Throughout Gibbs' lighthearted, laugh-out-loud tale, Curtis supplies proper notes of farce or stark terror as appropriate in flurries of line drawings that present most of the humans and the monsters with human features as White, though Belinda appears to present as Black. Along the way, Tim adds educational value to his narrative by flagging and then pausing to define vocabulary-building words like laborious and vexing. A lighter-than-air blend of knightly exploits and rib-tickling twists. (Fantasy. 10-12) Copyright Kirkus 2022 Kirkus/BPI Communications. All rights reserved.

Publishers Weekly Reviews

Diverting from anything seen at the Round Table, Gibbs (the Spy School series) brings his lighthearted touch to medieval times in this energetic series starter. When a nefarious monster absconds with Princess Grace of a neighboring kingdom, cowardly Prince Ruprecht seeks knights to join him on his rescue. Since, according to self-described peasant Tim, "the worst part of being a peasant isn't really what we don't have. It's what we can't do," he and his best friend Belinda sign up for tryouts, hoping to change their fates. In doing so, they enter into a dastardly plan concocted by Ruprecht and court advisor Nerlim, who aren't actually seeking knights (the kingdom can't afford them following a bad investment) but "people who they could fool into thinking that they were knights." A comic quest follows, with scares and laughs abundantly on offer. Sketch-style b&w art by Curtis (Penguin and Moose Brave the Night) visualizes the paper white–skinned cast's hijinks. Tim's chatty, entertaining narration, which includes ample potty humor and the occasional vocabulary "IQ booster," also touches on lessons about stereotypes and unconscious bias throughout the chatty, madcap adventure. Ages 7–10. (Mar.)

Copyright 2022 Publishers Weekly.

School Library Journal Reviews

Gr 3–5—A quest to save a princess turns out to be nothing like the fairy tales suggest. Narrated by Tim, a peasant boy with a surprisingly rich vocabulary and complete knowledge of all the things that don't exist in his world, this romp follows Tim and his best friend Belinda, who seize the opportunity to join Prince Ruprecht and Court Magician Nerlim as they head off to rescue Princess Grace (who, it turns out, doesn't actually need to be rescued). Along for the adventure are Ferkle the Village Idiot (only pretending because it's the family business) and Rover, Tim's Fr-dog (an enormous frog who was once a dog… oh, it's a long story). The prince isn't brave, the magician can only do card tricks, and the monster isn't so very monstrous. Along with the enhanced vocabulary and extreme silliness, there is discussion of societal expectations. All characters are cued as white. VERDICT Will kids understand all of the references? Possibly not, but the humor, enhanced by Quentin Blake-esque illustrations, will definitely find an audience with kids looking for a quick, funny read.—Mara Alpert

Copyright 2022 School Library Journal.

Librarian's View
Displaying 1 of 1