ALA Booklist (Fri May 01 00:00:00 CDT 1992)

When he hears that Dad is dead and that Cousin Aurora is planning to shoot his dad's dog, Jim Ugly, Jake takes the mongrel with him and runs away. The plot twists like a cyclone through the Old West, with story elements as varied as a phantom burial, a bounty hunt, a theatrical production, a hidden treasure, a long-lost love, and a dog who's slowly transferring his affection to Jake. Fleischman weaves his old magic through this tale, immediately drawing readers into the story through his convincing setting, characters, and dialogue. As the story continues, however, the focus shifts somewhat from Jake and Jim Ugly to the adult characters, making the ending less satisfying than the beginning. Still, few writers re-create this time and place as entertainingly as Fleischman, and many readers will be glad for the chance to revisit it. (Reviewed May 15, 1992)

Horn Book (Wed Apr 01 00:00:00 CST 1992)

Jim Ugly, a part-mongrel, part-wolf dog, is the only link to the true story behind Sam Bannock's supposed demise. The search for truth impels Sam's son, twelve-year-old Jake, to travel from Nevada to California with Jim Ugly as scout and companion. A fast-moving, picaresque adventure.

Kirkus Reviews

For 12-year-old Jake Bannock, ``Jim Ugly'' seems like a good name for his buried father's wolflike dog, but that low opinion changes when Jake figures out that his father isn't dead after all and he and the dog set out on a hopeful search for him. Sam Bannock—who has stolen a fortune in diamonds from theater impresario C.W. Cornelius and his sinister confederate D. D. Skeats, and left beautiful actress Wilhelmina Marlybone-Jenkins waiting at the church—is also the object of other searches, all of which converge in San Francisco after the sorts of twists, turns, and chases you'd expect from the author of The Midnight Horse and The Whipping Boy. Flushed out at last, Sam explains that he hid the diamonds by feeding them to his niece's chickens; but when everyone arrives at the chicken farm, the birds are gone, scattered across the Nevada desert. Jake, at least, is happy in the end: he has his old father, a new mother, and a dog that now answers only to his call. Fine helter-skelter melodrama. Illustrations not seen. (Fiction. 10-13)"

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

In what <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">PW called a "comic, suspense-laden western adventure," a boy searches for his supposedly dead father with the help of Jim Ugly, his father's wolf-like dog. Ages 8-12. <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">(June)

School Library Journal

Gr 4-8-- With a little silent-movie piano accompaniment, this rollicking parody of Western melodrama would effortlessly unfold across any stage. It is 1894, and Jake Bannock's actor father, Sam, has just been buried. The 12-year-old boy is seemingly left an orphan with no inheritance except for an unnamed, one-man dog, ``part elkhound, part something else, and a large helping of short-eared timber wolf.'' Jake calls him Jim Ugly. Mystery arises immediately . Where are the diamonds his dad is accused of stealing? Was that really Dad buried there in the Nevada Desert at Blowfly? Jake sets out in search of the answers, aided by Jim Ugly's keen nose. The two travel by baggage car from one town to another, trying to avoid a bounty-hunting, former cavalry sergeant who villainously skulks around the story's corners. Jake tells his own adventurous story--how he meets Wilhelmina Marlybone-Jenkins, an actress who was Sam's sweetheart; how he plays the apple-balancing role of William Tell's son with a traveling theatrical troupe; and how his search pays off when he sees his father--alive and well--on a San Francisco trolley. The climax and resolution make for a wonderfully improbable, mesquite flavored, farce. Jake's voice is simple and direct, made vivid by Fleischman's command of simile and metaphor. --Katharine Bruner, Brown Middle School, Harrison, TN