Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
    Unavailable
    The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
    Unavailable
    The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
    Audiobook10 hours

    The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

    Written by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer

    Narrated by Chike Johnson

    4.5/5

    ()

    Unavailable in your country

    Unavailable in your country

    About this audiobook

    NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURED DIRECTED BY AND STARRING CHIWETEL EJIOFOR – AVAILABLE ON NETFLIX

    When William Kamkwamba was just 14 years old, his family told him that he must leave school and come home to work on the farm – they could no longer afford his fees. This is his story of how he found a way to make a difference, how he bought light to his family and village, and hope to his nation.

    Malawi is a country battling AIDS, drought and famine, and in 2002, a season of floods, followed by the most severe famine in fifty years, brought it to its knees. Like the majority of the population, William's family were farmers. They were totally reliant on the maize crop. By the end of 2001, after many lean and difficult years, there was no more crop. They were running out of food – had nothing to sell – and had months until they would be able to harvest their crop again.

    Forced to leave school at 14 years old, with no hope of raising the funds to go again, William resorted to borrowing books from the small local library to continue his education. One day, browsing the titles, he picked up a book about energy, with a picture of a wind turbine on the front cover. Fascinated by science and electricity, but knowing little more about the technology, William decided to build his own. Ridiculed by those around him, and exhausted from his work in the fields every day, and using nothing more than bits of scrap metal, old bicycle parts and wood from the blue gum tree, he slowly built his very own windmill.

    This windmill has changed the world in which William and his family live. Only 2 per cent of Malawi has electricity; William's windmill now powers the lightbulbs and radio for his compound. He has since built more windmills for his school and his village.

    When news of William's invention spread, people from across the globe offered to help him. Soon he was re-enrolled in college and travelling to America to visit wind farms. This is his incredible story.

    William's dream is that other African's will learn to help themselves – one windmill and one light bulb at a time – and that maybe one day they will be able to power their own computers, and use the internet, and see for themselves how his life has changed after picking up that book in the library.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins Publishers
    Release dateFeb 7, 2019
    ISBN9780008330644
    Unavailable
    The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
    Author

    William Kamkwamba

    William Kamkwamba is a New York Times bestselling author and innovator who designs development projects, including safe water delivery and educational access. William tells his journey of how he achieved his dream of bringing electricity, light, and the promise of a better life to his family and his village in his memoir The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope, co-authored with Bryan Mealer. Since its debut, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind has sold more than 1 million copies and has been translated into nearly twenty languages worldwide. It has been published in two additional editions, a young reader’s version and a children’s book. After graduating from Dartmouth College in Environmental Studies, William began work as a Global Fellow for the design firm IDEO.org. He is an entrepreneur, TED Fellow, and has worked with the WiderNet Project to develop appropriate technologies curriculums focused on bridging the gap between “knowing” and “doing” for young people in Malawi and across the world. William splits his time between the U.S. and Malawi and is currently working full-time with the Moving Windmills Project to bring the Moving Windmills Innovation Center to life in Kasungu, Malawi.

    Related to The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

    Related audiobooks

    Cultural, Ethnic & Regional Biographies For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Fiction: Wolfdreams

      Feb 12, 2022

      Fiction: Wolfdreams
      6 min read

    • Article

      An Elephant Called Satani

      Nov 18, 2022

      An Elephant Called Satani
      7 min read

    • Article

      If You Believe

      Jan 2, 2022

      If You Believe
      4 min read

    • Article

      HUNTING With The Ellements…

      Sep 13, 2021

      HUNTING With The Ellements…
      19 min read

    • Article

      Cricket League

      Sep 1, 2019

      Ayat Jaffar, age 9 Avon, OH Over winter break, I went to Umrah. Umrah is an Islamic Pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia. I went with my mom, dad, and older sister. We went around a big black stone and between two big mountains seven times each in mem

      7 min read

    • Article

      Lucky Were the Bodies

      May 3, 2022

      Lucky Were the Bodies
      8 min read

    • Article

      My Life Among The Lions

      Feb 22, 2023

      My Life Among The Lions
      5 min read

    • Article

      He Who Fishes

      Feb 6, 2023

      He Who Fishes
      15 min read

    • Article

      My Life Among The Lions

      Feb 22, 2023

      My Life Among The Lions
      5 min read

    • Article

      My Life Among The Lions

      Feb 22, 2023

      My Life Among The Lions
      5 min read

    • Article

      Mark The Spot

      Jul 10, 2023

      Mark The Spot
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Daintree

      Jul 9, 2021

      The Daintree
      6 min read

    • Article

      Roadside Dispatches

      Apr 27, 2020

      Roadside Dispatches
      6 min read

    • Article

      Annabel’s Date With Destiny

      Nov 4, 2020

      ONE DAY, I HEADED UP into the hills to work a stretch of bush that ran alongside the Hangaroa River. I’d been eyeing it up for a few months, as it looked like a nice, easy place to run a few traps. I was busy laying out my traps when I heard the clip

      2 min read

    • Article

      Excerpts From The Works Of The 2024 Whiting Award Winners

      Apr 10, 2024

      The 2024 Whiting Award winners were announced Wednesday night. Below are excerpts from their work.

      19 min read

    • Article

      Large Animals

      Oct 6, 2021

      Imagine you’re a vet who has to perform surgery on a cat. Except it’s not a pet cat. It’s the biggest of the big cats – a Siberian tiger! So, a three-metre-long tiger is lying there, needing a fang removed. You’ve pumped enough drugs into it to send

      6 min read

    • Article

      A WING AND a prayer

      Sep 28, 2021

      A raven saved my life Cate McMurray, 47, from West Midlands I ’d always known I was different. As a small child, I used to see and hear people who weren’t there. One day, I was playing hide ‘n’ seek with my two sisters, and tucked myself away in a cu

      4 min read

    • Article

      India’s Wild Heart

      Jun 19, 2018

      India’s Wild Heart
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Right Horse

      Feb 26, 2022

      The Right Horse
      3 min read

    • Article

      Out Of My TREE

      May 11, 2021

      Out Of My TREE
      3 min read

    • Article

      Thirteen

      Jan 30, 2020

      Thirteen
      21 min read

    • Article

      Aim For The Heart…

      Jan 21, 2022

      Aim For The Heart…
      7 min read

    • Article

      Yara And The Witch Queen

      Oct 1, 2019

      I knew the dangers of witchcraft. My parents had told me about the time before I was born, when magic plagued our desert kingdom of Bahati. Untrained witch doctors trying to cure warts ended up paralyzing their patients or turning them into crocodile

      10 min read

    • Article

      Form Seven Alpha

      Oct 10, 2023

      So here I sit with it again, Form 7⍺. It is printed on cheap paper with low-quality ink that smudges under my fingers. The option they judge least bad for me has been scored through, unavailable, while the four other options remain. Since the last ti

      26 min read

    • Article

      A Little Love

      Apr 5, 2023

      A Little Love
      7 min read

    • Article

      Encounters with Leopards

      Sep 16, 2019

      Encounters with Leopards
      7 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

    4.5/5

    85 ratings68 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      This book shares a very personal story with struggle and circumstances that, despite the odds, are overcome through perseverance and an exceptional hunger for learning. It is a wonderful example of how people can excel beyond what others expect and despite others' lack of faith. But, this boy has also been partly a product of the good nature of those who saw his potential. It is a story that can inspire us to be truly thankful for the seemingly simple things that we enjoy daily (like running water, electricity, and food). It is also a story that should inspire us to reach out to others in need, for that's all it takes sometimes.
    • 5/5
      I finished this book ten days ago and am still having trouble trying to find the words to convey the powerful impact it has had on me. This year I started a project to read about Africa, naively thinking it would make a good year’s study. I now realize that I will be reading in the area for several years and will even then have more to explore. My focus right now is to read books written by Africans to get the personal perspective of those who live there. I was delighted to receive this ER book because it not only is a personal memoir of a young man in Africa, it also takes place in an area where I have a personal connection. The son and daughter-in-law of a friend of mine live in Malawi and are the directors of an orphanage there. I have visited with them when they are on home leave and heard about and seen pictures of their work there. This is an area where I have some personal knowledge of what is happening and it made the book very vivid for me.William Kamkwamba begins his story by telling of his childhood and relating how many of the values he learned were shaped by the folk tales that were told to him when he was a child. In the first part of the book we learn about daily life in Malawi, social customs, family and community relations, and a little about the politics from the time of their independence until now. We see some of the influences which shaped Williams personality and contributed to his determination to try to help his family. We also see the beginning of the dream of being able to bring electricity to his house and to his community to improve both life and working conditions there.The second part of the book tells of the devastation of the famine of 2002 for most of the people in the country and how one of the consequences for William and his family was that they now could not afford to send William to school. How William deals with this disappointment without losing sight of his dream and what he eventually accomplishes with the help of his friends and later with the help of “strangers” makes for one of the most inspiring memoirs I have ever read.Bottom Line: I am grateful that this book was about Africa because otherwise it might never have attracted my attention and I would have missed a wonderful experience seeing what the power of the human spirit can transcend if in the face of all obstacles it still strives to accomplish its dream. Highly recommended
    • 5/5
      If you haven't read it yet - DO SO !
      Great true story.
      You need to read it.
      Read in 2010.
    • 5/5
      Even if you don't usually read nonfiction or memoirs, I still think that you'll love this book for the writing, the story, and because of William Kamkwamba.William tells the story of his childhood in the small agricultural village in Malawi. From the the general bias towards magic and superstition over science, the crippling impact of the drought, and the isolation and difficulties that William, his village, and Malawi, the obstacles that they face are huge and clear. Reading the book, I first thought that my experiences in the "Third World" helped me understand the William's life from the superstition to the the impact of the drought and the opportunistic price gouging during the famine. But that interpretation fails to give enough credit to William and his book. The power of his story and the clarity of the writing surely guarantee that The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind will speak to people regardless of their experience and their home country. I cannot recommend this book more! I look forward to more news from William Kamkwamba and to meeting him during his book tour stop in NYC.Publisher: William Morrow (September 29, 2009), 288 pages.Courtesy of the Harper Collins and the author.
    • 5/5
      I had intended to give The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind maybe three and a half or four stars, but now that I have finished it through tears, I think it deserves five. William Kamkwanba has written the story of present-day Malawi and of his life as a small farmer's son in a small central Malawian village. I'm guessing that the reading level is about sixth grade, and the book feels like one of those High Interest/Low Level books that schools buy for high school students who don't read well. Nevertheless, the story makes putting up with the naive narration worthwhile - and, in fact, since William didn't learn much English until he was a young adult, even that is amazing.Anyone who wants to know about Malawi should read this book. William's life was a strange mixture of Christianity and belief in witches and other superstitions. He worked hard on a subsistence farm with his father until a drought in 2001 brought famine in 2002. At this point the laundry list language becomes completely authentic and eloquent. Those 75 pages about famine taught me more than any television program ever has. William's family survived both because they had a little more than many people going into the famine and because his parents were smart enough and enterprising enough to risk their remaining food stores at the crisis to sell little cakes for enough money to buy new meal each day to feed themselves and make more cakes. However, when the rains came and a new crop was finally harvested, William's father had too many debts to send William to secondary school.At that point at fourteen, William discovered a small, local library and began to read the books which changed his life. He had always been curious about science, and with Explaining Physics in hand, he conceived the idea of building a windmill to provide electric lights for his family's home. His scientific explanations made as much sense to me as anybody else's (by which I mean, "not a lot"), but his ingenuity and determination left me breathless. This was a windmill made from PVC pipe heated and then hammered flat; of a nail heated red-hot and used to bore holes in metal; of a nail wound about with copper wire for an electromagnetic coil; rubber from cast-off flip-flops for a wall-switch. His eventual success eventually brought him international recognition and an opportunity to pass on his technology to his neighbors in his village.By book's end William was in South Africa in school with plans to use everything he learned for his family and his country. Like the delegates to a technological convention that he attended, I am inspired by his message, "And I try, and I made it."(Thank you, LT for this inspiring book!)
    • 4/5
      I struggled through the first 40ish pages as it just didn’t grab me – it was feeling like one of those books which would be a chore to read. However, I persevered and I was so glad I did!

      This isn’t just a tale about windmills and science, but is about William’s life in Malawi. His father had been a market trader and a bit of a rogue, but then he met William’s mother and his life changed. He moved to be near his brother and started farming the land, growing maize and tobacco, and although the family didn’t have much money, life was good.

      But then came the drought in 2001 which obviously affected the crops. The situation was terribly bad for Kamkwamba’s family and considerably worse for many other people. William had to drop out of secondary school, a fact that upset him considerably as he had a thirst for knowledge. The majority of this memoir is about the family’s struggle to feed themselves in such terrible circumstances.

      William has always had an interest in science – particularly energy. He manages to make crude sources to run the family’s precious radio (purchasing batteries, as a luxury, are out of the question) and eventually finds his way to the village library. There he borrows textbooks and an idea forms that, if he could bring it to fruition, would change the family’s fortunes for the better. The rains finally come and although the family still struggle, things do improve. Armed with his new-found knowledge about harnessing wind to make electricity, William starts exploring the local tip for parts, and soon constructs a windmill. The villagers, and to some extent William’s own family, think he’s ‘misala’ – crazy – but with the help of his cousin Geoffrey and his good friend Gilbert (the villagers’ Chief’s son) William constructs a crude windmill – and it works!

      Reported in a local newspaper, the story was blogged and quickly went spread, leading to Kamkwamba being invited to speak at conferences in Tanzania and then America. His fame led to offers of help and since the first windmill was built, William has not only brought electricity and fresh water to his home but to his village, as well as refurbishing the primary school and various other projects. William’s story is truly inspirational and once I’d got into it I couldn’t put it down.
    • 5/5
      This is a very inspirational and encouraging story about surviving and thriving against the odds, and it has several good bits of advice spread throughout the story. Some of the most interesting sections are about the culture and folklore of Kasungu, Malawi, where William lived. The ancient stories of magic and battles were entertaining, as well as the accounts of William's own encounters with magic. Some of the rules that are followed strictly in Malawi seem pretty strange to me, but then our culture is strange to Malawians. There are some sad parts, like the different stories of the famine and when Malawi's government was corrupt.I had to read this for school, but I liked it a lot more than I thought I would.
    • 4/5
      I found this story of a boy who manages to bring electricity to his family's home in a Malawian village rather uneven. The subject matter was a bit of a mismatch for me, really, since I have no background nor much of an interest in science. When he began describing the details of his experiments with voltage and electricity, I could definitely appreciate and admire the ingenuity, but I still skimmed to get back to the more general topics. I enjoyed the book, though, and feel that it has a lot to offer in terms of the experience of life in Malawi and the horrible reality of famine, in addition to the ability of the human spirit to triumph over seemingly insurmountable odds. Sometimes not knowing any better is the only way to accomplish something.
    • 5/5
      This cross-cultural, engineering biography, shares the story of a boy named William who lives in the village of Malawi. Starvation became a huge issue in his community and without rain, the village's crops where scorched. It also limited his families income, which lead to William having no other choice but to drop out of school. He found to invention of a windmill pumping water and creating electricity and decided to create! He got his creation to work and produce electricity. Years later, he was also able to pump water from the ground with his "green machine." How to Use - I would use this an introduction to the process of engineering (Having a problem which leads to developing a product)
    • 4/5
      While it begins rather slowly with tales of witchcraft, black magic, spells and widespread ignorance, this book picks up momentum when its author begins to tell of the terrible famine that Malawi endured while he was a teenager. His descriptions of the agonies of constant hunger and the skeletal (or hunger-bloated) wraiths that wandered the roads and villages during these days are indeed heartwrenching. Then when he tells of his financial hardships which keep him out of school and how he begins to visit the village library to educate himself - to try to keep up with his peers - the narrative begins to really pick up. His accidental discovery of the power of windmills and how they might be used to generate electricity move the story still further along, and as William Kamkwamba haunts the local junkyard to find parts to build his own "electric wind" machine, one begins to feel the awful hunger and thirst for any knowledge that might make a better life for the author and his family and friends. Jeered and ridiculed as "crazy," Kamkwamba perseveres, and, with the help of a couple of close friends, he succeeds in building his windmill and generating electricity. Eventually he gains some local, and then national and even international fame. While Kamkwamba is not doing anything new with his windmill, his accomplishments place him far beyond his farmer kinsmen and countrymen. Told in the plainest prose, this may not exactly be a rags-to-riches story, but it is certainly a tale of determination and dreams come true, when Kamkwamba gains admission to a good school to continue his education. One can only wonder what this young man will make of himself in the future. This book would be very suitable as Young Adult (YA) reading, and could also be shelved under Inspirational books. I salute Mr. Kamkwamba for his ingenuity and spirit and wish him nothing but the best.
    • 5/5
      This is a really inspiring story of famine and energy, struggles and successes. William Kamkwamba is a Malawian who along with his family suffers under a famine - but is a natural tinkerer and becomes inspired to build a windmill to generate electricity and pump water for irrigation after reading some physics texts in a local village library when he is forced to drop out of school due to poverty. William successfully builds his windmill, becomes famous, and connects with other inventors as a TED Fellow. Really powerful stuff. Ghost written (William admits he doesn't know English well), but well told anyway. Recommended. I heard about this book on The Daily Show and am glad I got it and got around to reading it. Fast read - about half of it in a day or so.
    • 4/5
      This was an interesting look at a determined boy who built a windmill from junk parts to help pump water for his family and neighbors. His ingenuity earned him entrance to Dartmouth to study engineering. Heart-warming and inspirational.
    • 3/5
      This is a moving and inspiring story that would have been even better with some tighter editing. I had read so many glowing reviews of this book that I was rather surprised to find myself bored about 2/3 of the way through. True, the descriptions of the famine were horrifying while the accounts of of William's ingenuity were amazing. But the repetitive narrative and overly simple tone were getting a little tedious. But I kept reading because I decided that the ending of this book must be so fantastic that every single reviewer must have forgot about the tediousness of reaching that ending. I was right. It was amazing to see little William Kamkwamba go from village tinkerer to International speaker, and just like the other reviewers I was feeling a little starry eyed about this book. But I would be doing a disservice to potential readers if I let my final impression of the book cloud my initial impression. I truly wish the writing were just a little bit better because it is a book that I would love to recommend to teenagers as an inspiring story about innovation and the value of education. As it is, I would worry that all but the strongest readers would give up before they got to the really good part. P.S. As a librarian, I especially love the fact that William got his initial idea for building a windmill from a book he checked out at the local library.
    • 5/5
      It was a well written book that laid the groundwork well for what was to happen, it told William's story very well.

      It was great to see that even though he wasn't given the advantages in life that he had a plan, and although it got sidelined at times, that he persevered.

      It is sad to see that there are places in the world that don't even come close to having the advantages that we do. This was a very though provoking book.
    • 3/5
      The nonfiction book by Malawi author William Kamkwamba about his youth in the small African country where his family farmed maize at the mercy of drought and poverty. William wanted to go to school and learn science but because of the drought and loss of the crop he could not pay the fees. William did not give up but would study from science books from a small library. He used junk to build his first windmill and wired his parents home with electricity that could run small amount of lights. It is an interesting book that looks at a country that makes repurposing a way of life. They recycle junk all the time. Not like life where appliances are built to be thrown away every 6 years if you're lucky to get that much out of it. I can't say that I got into the electricity so much. It just isn't my interest but I was inspired by this young man who never quit trying and his desire to make things better for his country.
    • 5/5
      No book has brought home the value of literacy and access to books the way William Kamkwamba's autobiography The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind did. People who read stories about developing nations tend to take away from them whatever perspectives they bring to them. When i recommended this book to a friend at the wind energy association, I fully expected that he would focus on the value of renewable energy in rural areas. When I recommended it to a friend in the international rural electification field, I anticipated comments on the changes access to electricity brings to a rural community. I focused on the book that started it all, a donated U.S. textbook. Mr. Kamkwamba crystallizes the American ideal of the self-made man. An autodidact and Junkyard Wars style engineer, this imaginative young man found an unusual solution to the famine that nearly destroyed his family. He built a windmill from scraps with the intent of using it to pump water for his family's field. This is a very interesting book and it a moving story. Two things I noticed in this book that didn't seem quite as positive. First, Mr. Kamkwamba expressed a belief in witchcraft and the importance of prosecuting it. This may not resonate well with U.S. readers for whom the Salem witch trials are an important cultural and historical event. I also felt a bit sad toward the end when things changed rapidly in his life. It seemed as though he was a bit overwhelmed. Still, I would, and have, recommended this book to most everyone.
    • 4/5
      William Kamkwamba grew up in an African country, Malawi. His family were farmers and relied on the land and weather to be able to eat. When a famine hit the country and many people starved, William’s family made it through, but there was no money to send William to school. He so desperately wanted to go to school and learn. Instead, he went to the library and took out science books, from which he taught himself. He managed to build a windmill to provide his family home with electricity and had ideas for more things he wanted to build to make life better/easier. This started off really slow for me, and I wasn’t hopeful at first. But, about ¼ of the way through (when the famine hit), it really picked up for me, and just seemed to get better and better. The parts that weren’t as interesting to me was when he talked about the superstitions and magic and the hold they sometimes have over the Malawian people. I’m not sure why those parts lost my interest, but they did. Overall, though, I was excited with William when he showed off his windmill to all the people gathered, and was happy for all his successes after.
    • 4/5
      Many young African men are unable to attend school because they lack the money or are needed to work at home but one did not wait for the education to come to him - he sought it out. William Kamkwamba's family lived off the corn and crops they raised themselves. Every year they would plant the seeds in time for the rains to water them, hope that the rain would last long enough for the corn to grow, harvest and store the corn and pray it would last until the next harvest. They carried water from the village well and had no electricity. This was the way most people live in their part of Africa.William attended the free primary school and looked forward to studying science, particularly physics, in secondary school. Unfortunately, a drought hit the year he was to go and his family, barely making it through, could not afford to pay for the school. He made use of a local library, stocked with books sent from America, to try to keep up with his studies so that he could eventually return to school with his friends. While studying a book on electricity, he learned how to build a wind generator in order to light his home. He rummaged through junk piles to find parts and worked to save money for a dynamo until he successfully installed one light in his house. He continued to improve his system by installing a brake on the windmill, a battery to save energy for when the wind died, and a circuit breaker to prevent fire caused by the make-do wiring. His next project was to build a wind mill to pump water from a well to allow his family to plant more crops. He never lost his desire to return to school.William's creation was noticed by some visitors to the primary school and they notified their supervisor who notified the national radio network. William became famous and eventually was invited to speak at a conference and went on to improve his English in England and even fly to the U.S. This book opens with William's stories of his childhood and descriptions of his everyday life and we get a detailed account of the ravages of the drought and famine. While one light in a house means nothing to us, it meant everything to him and it opened a whole new life for him and his family.This book, like Mortensen's Three Cups of Tea, helps us see how important education is and reminds us that we should not take it for granted.
    • 5/5
      An inspirational story of a determined young genius. William Kamkwamba tells his remarkable story with patience and honestly. It is not until half way through the book that he gets to his invention of the windmill that changed his life. Without the back story that helps us understand his setting and his family, the rest of the book would not have context. The story of the famine in Malawi is in itself worth the purchase price of this book. The painstaking description of his family gradually running out of food is as riveting as anything I've read. Often the book does not live up to the story, but this an exception. A truly remarkable book.
    • 5/5
      My two-word opinion on “The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope” by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer?READ IT.This is a very readable book about a boy (now young man), growing up in drought- and famine-stricken Malawi. William Kamkwamba manages to overcome starvation and being forced to drop out of school because his family no longer can afford it. He figures out how to build a windmill to power his home. This drew much attention, and made news in parts of the world; not just locally. As a result, Bryan Mealer, author of a previous book about war in the Democratic Republic of Congo (”All Things Must Fight to Live”), heard about William and his windmill. To write this book, the two of them would meet together — William would tell stories through an interpreter to Mr. Mealer. This book is so much more than how William came to build his windmill. William shares with us the local beliefs, customs, village and farming life; along with the hardships his family, the villagers and he has had to endure.I was fascinated as soon as I started reading this book, when William shares with us stories about his countrypeople’s beliefs in magic, and the powers of the local witch doctors. William relates an incident that happened when he was about 6 years old — he was given some stolen bubble gum — and he fears that the witch doctor will come and get him. He says:“But then, as if a dark cloud had passed over the sun, I felt the great eye of the wizard watching me through the trees. I’d eaten his juju and now his darkness owned me. that night, the witches would come for me in my bed. They’d take me aboard their planes and force me to fight, leaving me for dead along the magic battlefields. And as my soul drifted alone and forsaken above the clouds, my body would be cold by morning. A fear of death swept over me like a fever”.William also adds what his father thinks of magic: “In a land of poor farmers, there were too many troubles for God and man alone. To compensate for this imbalance, he said, magic existed as a third and powerful force”.By the time William is a teenager, he loves to tinker with things; taking apart radios just to try to figure out how they work. He gets good enough that he repairs radios for people in his village and the surrounding villages. The famine hit Malawi when William became a teenager. His family struggled financially as a result. William tells us how he kept sneaking into school even when his dad didn’t have the fees, but eventually he was caught and told not to come back again until the family could pay. As he says:“…Instead of going home to ask my father for the money, for the next two weeks I tried to go to school for free.I had to calculate my movements carefully…..” We take for granted education here in the United States, don’t we? There are so many children, not just William, who want an education but can’t get it. However, William’s thirst for learning does not end when his school career does. When he is not helping his family out, he goes to the library and reads as much as he can. This is when William realizes he can build his own windmill and creatively uses various items, such as an old bicycle, a tractor fan, and random metal pieces.I was constantly impressed at how resourceful William was and is. Due to the publicity from his windmill, he is currently attending African Leadership Academy, a high school in Johannesburg, South Africa. He hopes that more Africans can be educated, because he feels education is key to self-empowerment and the key to Africa ever reaching success.He says:“I hope this story finds its way to our brothers and sisters out there who are trying to elevate themselves and their communities, but who may feel discouraged by their poor situation. I want them to know they’re not alone. By working together, we can help remove this burden of bad luck from their backs, just as I did, and use it to build a better future”.Now that I’ve read “The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind”, I feel even more convinced that Africa’s future depends not on politicians, but rather, the citizens themselves. Citizens like William Kamkwamba.Again, I strongly recommend reading this book. Yes, it is always inspiring to read about someone “beating the odds” — but this also is a very readable account on the state of one African country, which in turn gives the reader a good idea of the issues facing Africa overall. I think my only complaint is that it isn’t clear when and how Bryan Mealer comes into this book, and how William is the co-author.
    • 4/5
      This book was one that brought me joy. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba tells his story of how, growing up in the drought-ridden, poor country of Malawi, he dreamed of one day building a windmill like the ones he read about. His goal was to bring electricity and water to his village. He planned on studying and learning what he needed to at school, but that plan was cut short when his parents could not afford the tuition fee and he was needed at home to help forge for food to stave off starvation. William held onto his dream and with the use of old science textbooks, scrap metal and bits he could find, he managed to cobble together a workable windmill that provided enough energy for four lights, eventually a second machine was assembled that became a water pump. This boy who was called “crazy” by many achieved his dreams and became an inspiration to others.The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind is so much more than an instruction guide to building windmills. This story is a vivid memoir of this unusual young man who grew up in extremely difficult conditions and found a way to bring freedom along with power to his village.
    • 4/5
      An incredible first-hand story of a young boy in Africa who overcomes many obstacles to see his dream come true. Along with the auto-biographical recollections, we also get a glimpse into the social, cultural, and political realities faced by Kamkwamba, his family and his community. The story of the windmill comes later in the book and at times seems to have to fight its way into prominence within the book among all the other recollections. That is fitting, however, because it symbolizes Kamkwamba's own struggle within his circumstances to accomplish what he set out to do. Famine, death, poverty, lack of formal education,superstition, political corruption. Despite all these forces that seem to conspire against him, this fourteen-year-old boy is still able to harness his own creativity, imagination, and will of spirit to build his windmill and offer something of worth to his village, electricity and hope for a better future.
    • 4/5
      An inspirational read, with fascinating information about daily life in Malawi. I appreciated the cultural info as much as the story. It would make a good read-aloud book for school-aged kids too. The electrical info would probably go over their heads, but some of it went over mine, so it doesn't really matter.
    • 4/5
      This book, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba, grabbed my attention right away in the preface. What a wonderful story about a young boy who had a dream and brought it to reality through determination and hard work. The support of his father was crucial and it showed the importance of a local library to someone like William. Being a retired librarian it made my heart sing to see the importance of one in this small area.His interest in science and in improving life for his family and the village is truly touching and gratifying. To see someone who can live in poverty and rise above it to create something so useful out of bits and pieces of stuff is truly amazing. What a wonderful young man.
    • 5/5
      The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind is an inspirational memoir of a young Malawian whose curiosity, ingenuity, and persistence brought wind-powered electricity to his family and his village. William's family were subsistence farmers. William had a happy childhood until a famine depleted the family's savings and forced him to drop out of school. William still had several things going for him. He was allowed to use the library at his old primary school, where he found science books explaining electricity and other scientific principles. Even though he could have used William's help in the fields, William's father allowed him time for his independent studies. Although they didn't completely understand what William was trying to build, his best friend Gilbert and his cousin Geoffrey lent their support to his project, with Gilbert even paying for necessary materials that William could not afford. William's completed windmill soon attracted journalists to see it, and the resulting publicity caught the eye of people with influence. William accepted an invitation to a TED conference where he made more contacts that would help him in the future. William was able to finish secondary school and to eventually enroll in Dartmouth to continue his education.I wasn't expecting such a large section on the famine and its effects. It was especially difficult for me to read about William's dog, knowing what was coming when he was no longer able to spare food to feed him. My dog is usually either curled up next to me or on my lap while I read, and I ended up skimming quickly over that passage. As a librarian, I was encouraged by the importance of libraries to William's education. When he lost access to formal schooling, William still had access to a library. Library funding is important wherever you live. Every society, no matter how wealthy, has a disenfranchised sector for whom libraries are an essential resource for self-education and self-improvement.
    • 5/5
      How does a 14-year old high school dropout in a small famine-stricken country in south eastern Africa build a windmill? William Kamkwamba tells how he did in The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, a memoir of a young man who wanted to ensure a better life for his family by using ideas inspired by science books and his own innovation to build them.Kamkwamba’s memoir starts at the beginning, giving a brief history of his parents and grandparents as well as the cultural background of not only his local village but of his native Malawi itself. He then relates the adventures, and misadventures, of his earlier childhood in the relatively stable time before the 2001-02 famine that struck his country. Next comes the hard times of the famine and the struggle his family endured to survive it, but what also forced him to drop out of school. Yet all of this is important in understanding how Kamkwamba was able to construct the windmill that would change his life forever because he explains how not only he, but his family and friends would reuse material to create toys, or hunting traps, or repair other machines.A little over halfway through the book Kamkwamba begins recounting how he got the idea to build the windmill and his motivation behind it. The ingenuity of his reuse of materials found from junkyards to random materials he could all over his village to engineer his first windmill is fascinating, but given the earlier examples from his childhood the reader understands how Kamkwamba was able to use everything he found for the purpose he wanted. But Kamkwamba does not neglect the contributions of his friends and members of his family that helped and supported him throughout his building, even while some in his village though him a madman.Only in the last 30 pages of the book describes Kamkwamba experience from local curiosity to giving a presentation at a TED conference to eventually writing this book along with Bryan Mealer. Both Kamkwamba and Mealer knew that the why and how of building the windmill was the central point of this entire book and that while all the fame that Kamkwamba has gained is interesting, it only happened because of the windmill. The book is Kamkwamba’s, but he would be the first to acknowledge that English is his second language and Mealer’s contribution was to ensure that this book was very readable without losing Kamkwamba’s voice.If I was forced to write a review of this book in ten words or less, I would only needed three: “Just read this”. This book is of a young man who survived trying times that potentially put a limit on his expectations for life and the future, but he found a way to expand not only his own horizons but that of his family and village with an idea and hard work. So just read this book.
    • 4/5
      "Science and creation - something greater and more real than any magic in the land",, December 13, 2014This review is from: The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope (P.S.) (Paperback)An inspirational true story, narrated by a young Malawian man from a poor rural background. He tells of his life-long interest in science - early efforts involve fixing radios and bicycle dynamos.But then a combination of corrupt government and drought lead to a national famine. Kamkwamba's descriptions of his young friends and his beloved dog wasting away are heartbreaking. Meanwhile his family are on meager rations, and he's had to quit school, unable to pay the fees.With time on his hands, and aided only by a science book, he decides to try and build a windmill... 'One day windmills would be our shield against hunger.' But with only scrap metal and components he's crafted out of everyday items, it's a challenging undertaking...As a totally non-scientific female, I have to say that the sections where the author describes his handmade circuit breaker or the ins and outs of step up transformers were way beyond me (although he writes in simple English.) But even in the midst of advanced physics, the reader is ever aware this book is set in Africa:'The type of rectifier I needed looked like a tiny D-cell battery on a long metal skewer and reminded me of the smoked mice that young boys sell on the roadside as snacks.'An enjoyable read which draws the reader into a feeling of real liking for William and his friends.
    • 5/5
      Great story and so inspirational- great read for young and old!
    • 5/5
      What an amazing story! I can't remember the last time I read such a gripping work of non-fiction, if ever; I tore through this book yesterday afternoon/evening despite having other things that I should have been doing, and came away thoroughly satisfied. Even before I read the book, I was hooked by the premise: a Malawian boy, living in the midst of poverty and famine and with limited educational opportunities, reads about windmills in a library book and decides that electricity is the solution to his family's problems. So, using various scraps of metal and relying heavily on the book's diagrams, he goes ahead and builds his windmill. And it works.It was so nice to read a positive book about Africa for a change. The problems aren't hidden; there's plenty of talk about famine in particular, including good explanations of the reasons behind it, but the overall outlook is optimistic. I also liked book's the writing style (it was co-written with a former journalist), found Kamkwamba easy to relate to, and generally enjoyed the whole reading experience. I have a feeling this will end up in my Top 5 for the year.
    • 5/5
      In the LDS Church, we are encouraged to fast for two consecutive meals on the first Sunday of every month. It's not just 'going hungry' - we are to ask for spiritual help with something, or to bless someone else, and to pray for an increased measure of the Spirit as we fast. Then we take the money we would have spent on those meals and donate it to the Church for the support of the poor in our area. I must admit that I am not great about following this practice. We have always been faithful in the payment of our fast offerings, donating as much as we could, much more than the cost of the food itself, whenever we can. But the going without food part is hard for me.This weekend I grabbed a library book that will forever change how I look at the fast. It's called "The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind," by William Kambewamba. William grew up in the African nation of Malawi, the son of a farmer. His family would grow maize, or corn, and tobacco every year, milling the food they needed for themselves and using the money they earned to provide for their needs for the year. One year they had planted their maize, as usual, but the rains didn't come. For weeks the crop struggled along, with the seeds barely breaking through the soil. Then the rains came, but all once. The seeds were washed away in a flood. William's family planted again, but they couldn't afford fertilizer and the crop didn't have enough time to grow before the harvest. The entire nation was affected.His family got their grain milled, one bag at a time, but they had only five bags to last them all year. At first, they hoped that the government would come through with the food they needed. But instead, corrupt officials sold what grain they could and the surplus disappeared. So people starved. When the grain was almost gone, the hungry people took the husks of the corn, the green part I throw away every time I cook corn, and ground that up and ate it. When it began to run out, they mixed the husks with sawdust and at that. They ate the leaves of the pumpkin vines. They even ate the seed corn, scrubbing off as much insecticide as they could. William's family saved their seed corn, but they were down to a tablespoon of food or so a day. Then it was time to plant. With their bellies aching from hunger, and sometimes too dizzy to stand and temporarily blinded, they found the strength to plant their seeds. And then they prayed. The rains came, and the people had food again.As I read William's story, and his desperate attempts to gain an education and break this cycle of subsistence farming, I found myself thinking about my cupboard full of food. All those stories of 'children starving in Africa' and how I needed to clean my plate ran through my head. And yet, what would William have done with my breakfast cereal, my mashed potatoes and meat loaf, my tuna casserole? They wouldn't have even known what it was, much less how to cook it.Last night I prepared for my fast today with a completely different attitude. It wasn't that by fasting I could somehow bless those who are hungry in tiny nations across the world. It wasn't even that I could somehow alleviate the hunger of those in this country. It was because I needed to remember that food is a blessing, that I am lucky to have enough to eat. If we run out of food and money again, I know that I can count on my church, on my government, on my family. The stores have plenty of food. But over the history of the world, most people were not that lucky. So my fast becomes an act of gratitude that I am blessed, and a reminder that I need to help others who are not so lucky.This was an amazing book. William's father ran out of money so could not pay for his son's education. William had to quit school and go to work on the farm. He tried to keep up with what his classmates were learning and found the local library. There he found books on electricity, physics, and energy. He decided to build a windmill. He scrounged parts from the junkyard, took apart radios and engines, and got help from his friends, but he succeeded. He was able to use his windmill to provide energy for little light bulbs in his house so he could see to read at night. Soon word of his project got out and he attracted the attention of journalists and scientists. They helped him make his windmill stronger and safer, dig a well so his family could have clean water, replace his grass roof with a tin one, and provide electricity for his entire village. It is an amazing story of determination and triumph over adversity that will inspire anyone. And it changed the way I look at what I have. I have a cupboard full of food, clean water with the turn of the faucet, a sturdy house, electricity and heating, a way to keep myself and my clothing clean. I am not afraid of soldiers with guns taking what I have. I can send my children to school for free. I can go to the doctor when I am sick.I am blessed. And I need to remember that.