Frances Bradburn (Booklist, Mar. 1, 2005 (Vol. 101, No. 13))
Scrib is a manuensis, a letter writer for illiterate westerners trying to maintain contact with loved ones, the government, or businesses back east. But when he begins to receive death threats regarding his literary profession, Scrib is forced to give up his livelihood. Finding another line of work is fraught with more peril--and humor--than Scrib expects. Finally, he solves the mystery of his pursuer and reinstalls himself as the region's letter writer once again. Scrib's adventures are told with a humor that's straight out of an old western. His bad luck borders on slapstick most of the time, and his creative spelling--"mazewell" (may as well), "melodraymas" (melodramas), "eyetinerant" (itinerant)--and exaggerated cowboy drawl add to the absurdity. An entertaining boy-pleaser, if not an edifying work of literature. Category: Books for Older Readers--Fiction. 2005, HarperCollins, $15.99, $16.89. Gr. 6-9.

Meredith Ackroyd (Children's Literature)
Life is sweet for Scrib, a traveling scribe who makes a living in the Wild West by writing and delivering the love letters, political entreaties, and outlaw missives of a rag-tag bunch of settlers and natives, including lovers Romulus Vollmer and Jenny Smeed, Native-American Pierre Trakki, and outlaw Crazy James Kincaid. In this wild and shifting country, a talent with words can be both valuable and risky, as Scrib discovers the night that he hears the cold “tching” of a boot spur and finds the word “DIE” scraped in cigar ash on a boulder near his camp. Someone wants to kill Scrib and, more mysterious yet, he wants Scrib to stop delivering letters. Somehow, Scrib’s letters and the lives that they represent are all tied up in a dangerous, wordy mess, and it is up to Scrib to find out how to sort it all out. The ensuing drama leads Scrib on a journey that has him questioning not just the identity of the mysterious man who wants him dead, but also his own identity--who he is, why he writes, and just what it is that makes a life good and sweet. Along the way, the reader is treated to a masterful tale about words and writing. This is a tale in which the words shape the story as much as the story shapes the words and in which identity and meaning are as twisted and circuitous as the misused and misspelled words and names that fill each page. 2005, HarperCollins Publishers, $15.99 and $16.89. Ages 12 up.

Kirkus (Kirkus Reviews, February 15, 2005 (Vol. 73, No. 4))
Hitch up your jeans and saddle up for a rip-roarin' and -writin' escapade wild-west style with 16-year-old Billy Christmas, a letter writer whose life never lacks for adventure as he relates the exploits, letters and conversations he encounters in 1863. Nicknamed Scrib (short for scribe), he travels with his trusty friend Gabe (his horse), delivering and writing letters for folks who can't. From the first chapter, the pace is fast with someone shooting at him and writing the threat, "Die!" on a rock. The action quickly tumbleweeds as Scrib runs into and away from typical western characters: the whiskey-drinking preacher, the robbing bar lady, the dishonest mayor/judge, the heart-of-gold killer, and the man in the black hat. If you can stand it, half the entertainment here is the wordplay, though it doesn't always hold to form. Playwright Ives phonetically twangs Scrib's spelling, riddling the narrative with wit and bite: e.g., "parabull" (parable); "senshal intoxication" (sensual); "poojilists" (pugilists). Shoot-em-up action, young hero, character and language buffoonery-it's ready-made for a movie and brimming with ten-gallon fun. 2005, HarperCollins, 208p, $15.99. Category: Historical fiction. Ages 10 to 15. © 2005 Kirkus Reviews/VNU eMedia, Inc. All rights reserved.

Paula Rohrlick (KLIATT Review, March 2005 (Vol. 39, No. 2))
The cover, featuring a cowboy hat, pencils, and paper flying through the air, riddled by bullets, sums up this rollicking tale nicely. The front page provides a lengthy subtitle that describes the plot: "Some Characters, Adventures, Letters, and Conversations from the Year 1863, Including a Deadly Chase in the Wilderness of the Fearsome Canyon, All as Told by Billy Christmas, Who Was There." Billy, known as "Scrib," is a 16-year-old scribe who travels about the Old West writing and delivering letters for "ill-letterates," as he calls them, including a Paiute Indian who writes to President Lincoln, and a lovesick rancher. He is stalked by an unknown enemy, beaten up, and then accused of thievery and sentenced to hang; luckily, he is saved in the nick of time by the outlaw Crazy James Kincaid. Like Sid Fleischmann's Jim Ugly, this combines humor with Old West legends and lore to create an entertaining tale. Ives, author of Monsieur Eek as well as off-Broadway plays, has a lot of fun with words (e.g., "mazewell" for "may as well," "ettikat" for "etiquette"; Scrib is described as "born and breaded for words"), and readers from fifth grade or so on up will get a kick out of Scrib's many adventures and his unique way of describing them. Category: Hardcover Fiction. KLIATT Codes: JS--Recommended for junior and senior high school students. 2005, HarperCollins, 188p., $15.99. Ages 12 to 18.

Lisa Scherff (The ALAN Review, Fall 2005 (Vol. 33, No. 1))
Scrib is the first-person account of William Stanley Christmas who, at the age of thirteen, runs away from home and begins his life as a scribe. Traveling all over the West, Scrib (William) makes his living writing letters for those who are illiterate. The intrigue begins in chapter one when he discovers that he is being followed by a mysterious stranger who wants him dead. Chapter titles such as “Attack at the Triple X Ranch” and “I Write a Letter and am Murdered” provide the reader with quick, interesting summaries of the action that will take place. Scrib would be an excellent book to be read to students. As many words are phonetically spelled (“mazewell have a thoro look”), they sound authentic read aloud; they could create confusion for individuals reading silently. Category: Humor/Western/Mystery. YA--Young Adult. 2005, HarperCollins, 208 pp., $15.99. Ages young adult.Knoxville, TN

Karen Coats (The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, April 2005 (Vol. 58, No. 8))
Mild-mannered William Stanley Christmas flees the lavender and picket fences of his mother’s St. Louis home and sets off to seek his fortune in the Wild West of the 1860s. The fourteen-year-old sets up as an itinerant letter-writer, adopting the name Scrib and riding a circuit that takes him from farm to homestead to “wickiup,” passing letters between lovers, separated family members, and even between Pierre Trakki, a “Paiute Injun,” and Abraham Lincoln. Scrib’s “imagenative spelling and grammer” and his consistently mispronounced words and malapropisms don’t stop him from having a successful career, until he is savagely beaten by someone who warns him to change his profession. Mystified but convinced by his broken ribs, Scrib decides to take up a life of “Senshal Intoxication” by engaging the services of one Suzi Generous, “the town’s quick answer to the long question of love,” but that too goes sour for the young man. He knows he must face his enemy, and he does, despite running afoul of a corrupt judicial system supporting a town bent on entertainment at any cost (after insulting the local tabloid reporter who visits him in prison with “a leopard-skin notebook complete with claws,” for instance, Scrib worries that his trial might not get a good review, but that his hanging will get an A++). The plot moves along at a good clip throughout, accelerating through a seemingly desperate climax to a satisfying conclusion as the villain comes to a bad end. Ives’ great gift for linguistic twisting, the odd detail, and comic characterization sparkles as Scrib ponders where life is taking him; Scrib’s laconic drawl relates the “melodrayma” of his predicament with a deft Mark-Twain-like understatement, and the secondary characters are as divertingly “various” as Scrib feels people to be in general. Scrib’s own unprejudiced heart makes him a hero worth cheering for; give this to readers who like their adventures salted through with quirky wit, subtle ironies, and canny homespun wisdom. Review Code: R -- Recommended. (c) Copyright 2005, The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. 2005, HarperCollins, 188p, $16.89 and $15.99. Grades 6-9.

Horn Book (The Horn Book Guide, Fall 2005)
As a scribe and itinerant letter-writer in the Wild West of 1863, Scrib makes a living from flowery language and creative spelling. When a villainous suitor makes the error of blaming the messenger, Scrib is catapulted into a series of death-defying adventures. Ives's witty wordplay is lively and the plot is fast and funny in this great read-aloud. Category: Intermediate Fiction. 2005, HarperCollins, 191pp, 15.99, 16.89. Ages 9 to 12. Rating: 3: Recommended, satisfactory in style, content, and/or illustration.

Twyla Wallace (The Lorgnette - Heart of Texas Reviews (Vol. 18, No. 1))
In 1863, Billy Christmas, thirteen, runs away from home to the Wild West. He starts writing letters for illiterate cowboys and outlaws for pay. However, his spelling is as creative as his love letters are. After he meets the famous outlaw, Crazy James Kincaid, Billy decides letter writing is too dangerous and pursues “World Pleasures and Sensual Intoxication” only to be cracked on the head with a blackjack. Billy is shot at, arrested, and faces hanging. This is a funny, fast-paced adventure that is hilarious. I recommend it for students who like comedy and light reading. Fiction. Grades 7-12. 2005, HarperCollins, 188p., $16.89. Ages 12 to 18.

James Blasingame (VOYA, June 2005 (Vol. 28, No. 2))
Billy Christmas is a young man making his way in the Old West, or rather the Wilderness of Fearsome Canyon, as he calls it. The time is 1863 and the mood is melodramatic as the language and events seem more parody than realism. Billy, nicknamed Scrib, makes his living reading and writing for people in need of such talents in a time and place where these skills are rare. He reads letters and takes dictation in reply, makes signs, or provides any other service that a scribe could offer. Among his customers are a stoic first American, Paiute Pierre, and the love-struck couple Romulus Vollmer and Jenny Smeed. Enter the bad guy, an oily but handsome "gentleman," named Edward Dexter, who attempts to steal young Jenny and nearly murders Scrib to prevent him from facilitating the two lovers' romance in letters. Dexter frames Scrib, who would surely be hung were it were not for Crazy James Kincaid, a notorious if misunderstood outlaw with a heart of gold (which only Scrib knows about him). Sadly Scrib's horse Gabe, his best friend in the whole world, dies at the hands of Dexter, and it looks as if Scrib will be next. Will Edward Dexter steal Jenny from Romulus and inherit the Smeed ranch? Will Paiute Pierre appear in time to save the day? The novel rushes to a predictable ending, but it is the only ending that would be true to the genre-young adult "mellydrama." This book will most appeal to readers ten to twelve years of age or readers old enough to fondly remember "Dudley Do Right" cartoons or the old Maverick television show. VOYA CODES: 3Q 3P M J (Readable without serious defects; Will appeal with pushing; Middle School, defined as grades 6 to 8; Junior High, defined as grades 7 to 9). 2005, HarperCollins, 208p., $15.99 and PLB $16.89. Ages 11 to 15.