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Reviewed by Jack Magnus for Readers' Favorite
Tending Fences: Building Safe and Healthy Relationship Boundaries; The Parables of Avery Soul is a series of parables written by Terry Barnett-Martin and illustrated by Susan Eberhardt. The stories are about a rancher named Avery Soul and how he learns to build fences in his ongoing relationships with his neighbors. Underlying these stories is the message that we are all Avery Soul, and each one shows how fences can keep those people we have relationships with within boundaries we can be comfortable with. Sometimes, we need fences to keep from encroaching on our friends' boundaries as well. The parables show how, rather than being a nuisance and an unwanted burden, building these fences can actually be a joy and bring unforeseen benefits. At the end of the day, Avery looks out over his lands and sees the fences he’s built, and he realizes that they are things of beauty and have made him and his neighbors contented and pleased with their relationships.
Terry Barnett-Martin’s Tending Fences is a whimsical series of parables that delight and instruct all at once. I cringed as Avery is deluged by cow plops from his neighbor Bubba Bueser, and how all his attempts to communicate with Bubba fail to stop the Dung Rain. The fence he built to stop the dung was the perfect solution, even if Bubba kept on flinging dung, and that which had already been flung provided an excellent fertilizer for Avery’s trees. What a marvelous way of showing people how to navigate the ins and outs of relationships with those in their lives. Many of us are afraid of building these fences and spend much time and energy trying to explain viewpoints and change minds. Tending Fences shows a much better series of solutions to relationship problems; solutions that can make life and those relationships even better. I smiled as I read each parable and then I thought about how it was relevant to my life and my relationships. Tending Fences is captivating and funny, with brilliant illustrations and even more brilliant insights scattered on each page. It’s a book to be read and re-read as your ranch and lands need tending, and it’s highly recommended.
