The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind discussion

The boy who harnessed the wind by William Kamkwamba
Reviewed by Eduardo Prado

The book tells the true story of a teenager named William Kamkwamba, who came up with the brilliant idea of creating a windmill that saved the village from a famine. William was born in Malawi and from a poor family that didn’t have enough money to pay for his education. However, he still showed up to school until the principal of the school forced him to drop out. William found a way to sneak into the library so he could read how windmills worked. The village was going through food shortages because there was no rain, so it was impossible to harvest. But this specific year (2002) was worse than the past years, there hadn’t been rain for months. People started leaving the village because they knew would starve to death if they stayed. William was worried because his family didn’t want to leave the village, due to religious beliefs. He did think about leaving with his friends, but he wasn’t brave enough to do so. He instead tried building a windmill using scrap pieces from a wrecked car, battery, water pump and a bicycle. William did many attempts on getting the windmill working and failed, his family didn’t believe in him, but he refused to give up on his idea. He kept working until he got built an operable windmill that was strong enough to power 4 lights and a water pump that brought running water to the village which helped fight the drought in the village.

I recommend this book to people that love nonfiction books and would like to read about bow people lives and experience shaped themselves to be a better person. There are many life lessons to take from the book. The book made me think that we live such a great life.