Mister Once-Upon-a-time

Steve Pitt is a Toronto-based freelance writer and an award-winning journalist. He has written many young adult and children's books, including Day of the Flying Fox: The True Story of World War II Pilot Charley Fox.

Somewhere far, far away is a little town where people do nothing all day
except tell each other stories. Suddenly, their idyllic existence is
shattered by a strange little man who deliberately interrupts them. Any
time someone begins a new tale, he knocks on the door, taps at the
window, comes down the chimney, squirts out of the faucet, or even faxes
himself into the storyteller’s home. The townspeople have the little
stranger arrested and thrown into the village dungeon. With the little
man safely locked away, they think their problems are over. But to

their horror, they discover that something is now terribly wrong with
their stories. The villagers then realize that they must find a way to
get along with

the stranger, or no one will be able to tell a story again.

If anyone could create a first-rate tale about getting along, it would
have to be the multi-award-winning team of Rémy Simard and Pierre
Pratt. (Their earlier collaboration, My Dog Is an Elephant, won both the
Governor General’s Literary and Mr. Christie’s Book awards.)
Simard’s prose plunges the reader into a delightfully absurd world
that eventually makes sense. Pratt’s illustrations crackle with energy
and ingenious composition. Highly recommended.