Once upon a time, Rémy Simard’s latest picture book begins, in a village far, far away, the people had only one thing to do, and that was to tell stories. Then, one afternoon, a tiny little man with a funny hat drives into the village in a red truck. When night falls and the storytelling begins, the stranger, Mr. Once-upon-a-time, appears at villagers’ homes, knocking on doors, sliding down chimneys, or slipping though keyholes. “Mr. Once-upon-a-time, here,” he says, each time. “At your service.” The poor little man is, of course, responding to his name, which begins each story, and the villagers must find a way to deter him from interrupting or refrain from their favourite pastime.

The collaboration between Simard and Pierre Pratt is once again felicitous (previous works include The Magic Boot and My Dog Is an Elephant). Pratt’s illustrations feature his characteristic use of primary colours and thick, shadowy lines. The village has an Old World look about it, with cobblestone walks and tightly clustered houses. Mr. Once-upon-a-time himself looks like a cross between a door-to-door salesman and a leprechaun. Beneath the text, Pratt has placed black and white illustrations of a book that is open on each page to a new leaf, representing the progression of the story.

Mr. Once-upon-a-time is a funny fireside tale, not unlike one the book’s characters might tell on a dark, rainy night in their isolated village. Part fairy tale, part anecdote, it reads as though the author composed it off the top of his head, as all good bedtime stories do. This is not a moral or didactic picture book. The villagers’ problems are solved with relative ease, and the plot centres around a joke that even the littlest listener will understand. To put it simply, Mr. Once-upon-a-time is a good yarn.