Below is the complete list of Stuart Gibbs’ Once Upon a Tim books in order of publication. This is the recommended reading sequence for the series.
Once Upon a Tim Books
- Once Upon a Tim (2022)
View Book - The Labyrinth of Doom (2022)
View Book - The Sea of Terror (2023)
View Book - The Quest of Danger (2023)
View Book
About Once Upon a Tim
Stuart Gibbs’s Once Upon a Tim books take the fast pacing and comic timing that run through much of his work and drop them into a fairy-tale kingdom. Simon & Schuster describes the series as a humorous, highly illustrated middle-grade fantasy, while Stuart Gibbs’s own site presents it as his first illustrated series. That matters because the books are not trying to be solemn epic fantasy. They are built to be lively, visual, and funny, but the adventure structure underneath is real.
The series centers on Tim, a peasant boy in the kingdom of Merryland who wants more from life than the role assigned to him. On Gibbs’s official page, Tim is described as brave, clever, and determined to do the right thing even though he rarely gets the credit for it. That is really the heart of the series. Tim is not a prince, not a chosen heir, and not someone the world expects much from. The books get a lot of their charm from letting an underdog carry a story that would usually belong to somebody born at the top of the fairy-tale ladder.
The publication order is currently four books: Once Upon a Tim, The Labyrinth of Doom, The Sea of Terror, and The Quest of Danger. Gibbs’s official collection page and Simon & Schuster’s boxed-set listings confirm that four-book sequence, which makes this a clean series to follow in order.
What makes publication order especially worthwhile here is that the series clearly builds from one stage of Tim’s journey to the next. The first book establishes who Tim is and why he refuses to accept the narrow future laid out for him. The later books then widen the scale: a deadly labyrinth, dangerous seas, and an increasingly larger quest. Even without re-listing every plot beat, you can feel the structure in the titles alone. This is not a set of disconnected fantasy capers. It is one continuing climb for a boy trying to become something larger than the world has allowed him to be.
Another big part of the series’ appeal is tone. These books are playful without becoming weightless. Simon & Schuster repeatedly emphasizes that they are laugh-out-loud funny, and that is true, but the humor works because Tim’s problems still matter. He has friends, rivals, monsters, betrayals, and real danger to navigate. The comedy comes from personality, bad luck, and the gap between fairy-tale expectations and the much messier reality Tim actually lives in.
The illustrated format also helps set Once Upon a Tim apart from Gibbs’s other series. The drawings give the books a more storybook-like entry point, but the pacing remains very much his own: quick scenes, strong hooks, escalating danger, and a hero who survives more by brains and persistence than brute force. That combination makes the series especially inviting for younger readers who are ready for chapter-book fantasy but still want momentum and humor on every page.
What lingers most is Tim himself. Stuart Gibbs has always been good at writing smart kids in difficult situations, but Tim has a slightly different emotional pull from some of his other protagonists. He is not stepping into a modern institution like a spy school or zoo mystery world. He is trying to rewrite his place in a kingdom built on rank and birth. That gives the series a satisfying underdog shape. Read in publication order, the books show that progression clearly: one peasant boy, a widening world, and a fairy-tale adventure that becomes more ambitious with each step.