Good Fences‪.‬

Cry Wolf: A Political Fable by Paul Lake (Dallas, TX: Benbella Books, Inc., 2008) Few books invite such potential misunderstanding as Cry Wolf. Paul Lake's political allegory, the literary antecedents of which include Aesop's Fables, the medieval bestiaries of Theobaldus and Phillippe de Thaun, and Orwell's Animal Farm, contrasts the domestic animals who reside at Green Pastures Farm with the wild animals who inhabit the surrounding forest. A strict code of law combines with an abiding religious faith and an enduring respect for the common good to render the farm animals temperate, amiable, and civilized. Freedom and toleration define their communal life. In the forest, savagery prevails; the world beyond the fence is divided between predator and prey and is thus irredeemably barbarous.