Three books by Sara Henderson - Review

The Sara Henderson Trilogy.
From Strength to Strength*
The Strength In Us All
Some of My Friends Have Tails

These are 3 separate books, the first two written to stand on their own.
Unfortunately, the 3rd isn’t, and would at times be incomprehensible to
readers who had not firstly spent time with the previous volumes.

Sara and her husband had a high-flying life in some pretty high-flying
situations (Charlie was a pilot) when they decided to buy Bullo River, a
(very) large station in the Northern Territory. There they raised animals, 3
daughters and debt. It wasn’t until Charlie died that Sara found out how
much debt. The story of how she succeeded in getting out of debt is the
subject of her first book “From Strength to Strength”*. For her efforts she
was named Australian Business Woman of the Year (1991), and this book
was named the Book of the Year (1993).

The second book “The Strength In Us All” tells of how she coped with the
Award and its aftermath, and at the same time, kept running the business
side of the property. One of her daughters took over the day-today details
of staff, stock, fences, vehicles, while Sara had a hectic regime of book-
writing, radio-telephone calls to bank managers, conferences, appearances
and interviews, all the time trying to reduce the horrendous debt Charlie
had accrued.

The final work is “Some of My Friends Have Tails”, and covers the animals
that kept Sara and her family company through her life, and some of the
human characters as well who had left an impression on her. It recounts
many a story from the outback and beyond, some humorous, some sad,
some ridiculous, some serious, all interesting involving the Hendersons.

All 3 works are extremely well written and easy to read. One wonders how
she manages to convey all the sensitivity and feeling in her writing whilst
retaining her chatty style.

These 3 books are now available in the Hampden Library. The second
book has information recently added to it about the author’s death in 2005,
the tributes paid to her, and the long-running legal case with one of her
daughters. (The second book also is not in as good condition as the others
and care is necessary in handling it.)

*(This book  also available on audio tape read by the author, but is not in the Hampden Library.)