The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

Author: William Kamkwamba

DISCLAIMER: These are private notes I wrote in my public library app about the book prior to creating this site and tracking and writing about all my reading here. I am pasting those notes into this site to consolidate everything. These notes are rough, unintelligent, and pasted as is (spelling mistakes and all). Enjoy.

A great read, even after having seen the movie and knowing the general story. Massive famine in Malawi due to drought. William learns purely through old books at a library how to fix things like radios, uses electricity, dynamo’s etc. He has this idea that if he can make a windmill, he can create electricity for himself so he can study in his room at night. Malawi has little power, so once it’s dark, everyone basically just goes to bed. He succeeds, is able to get power to his whole house, and eventually powers a water pump so they can plant/harvest twice a year instead of one time and not be so reliant on the rains.