The Land of Pleasant Dreams

A Fence Too High by Jeanine Bartelt, Jeff Parker, and Tony Salerno, 1986.

Peter falls asleep while counting sheet jumping over the fence and meets Lacey the Lamb in his dream. Lacey the Lamb is sad and worried because, even though she’s growing up to be a fence-jumping sheep, there is one fence that she just can’t get over. Peter offers to take a look at the fence with her and see if he can help. When he does, it turns out to be a giant rainbow.

It’s important that Lacey make it over this fence because she is taking part in a fence-jumping contest in less than an hour. Lacey doesn’t think that she can learn to jump this fence in so little time. However, Peter encourages Lacey to try again.

After a few more tries in which she hits the blue stripe on the rainbow and then the yellow stripe and then the orange stripe, Lacey is ready to give up. She thinks that it’s hopeless. Peter points out that it isn’t hopeless because each time that Lacey has tried, she has improved, gradually hitting higher and higher marks on the rainbow. He doesn’t think that Lacey should give up so easily.

Even though she’s still feeling very unsure of herself, she decides to participate in the contest. This time, Lacey does make it over the fence, and she feels much better about herself because of her success. She thanks Peter for giving her the encouragement to try one more time.

Moral: If At First You Don’t Succeed, Try, Try Again.

It’s a nice story about the importance of making an effort, trying again, and not giving up just because there are obstacles and challenges. Life has many challenges, and just because something is difficult doesn’t mean that it’s impossible or not worth doing. People don’t need to be perfect; it’s enough to be willing to improve.

This book was made into an episode for the tv show version of the series with puppets.