The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope

A moving and inspiring story of African resourcefulness (2010-07-29) : 5/5
What does an African schoolboy do if his family is reduced to abject poverty by a severe drought and he is kicked out of school because his parents cannot afford to pay school fees? In this book, William Kamkwamba describes how he went to the library to study books to try to keep up with his classmates, and in those books he found some ideas that could be used to improve his family's situation.

A school textbook called "Explaining Physics" showed how a rotating power source could be used to generate electricity to power a light globe, and another called "Using Energy" contained pictures of windmills. William decided to build a windmill to provide electrical power to his house and eventually hopefully to power a pump that would enable his family to irrigate their crops even if there was a drought. Using parts gathered from a scrapyard and some remarkable ingenuity, he made a windmill which worked, much to the surprise of the people in his village.

I found the book to be very moving in the way it described the privations and gradual starvation brought on by the drought and the government's failure to respond, and then the resourcefulness of William in understanding and building advanced technology that no-one in his village had ever seen, merely on the basis of photographs and drawings in school text books. It is a great story, well told and intriguing to the very end. I highly recommend it.

Even the most jaded will be inspired by this book (2010-07-10) : 5/5
An exceptional story that is, as cliché as it sounds, truly inspiring. The writing was perfect: the co-author retained William's voice throughout, and he managed to pull off a past tense story that integrates more third person omniscient moments--that's brilliant. I had to visit William's website after I read this. I think I've found a new charity to support. This was a beautiful story that will restore your faith in humanity.
Book for project (2010-07-05) : 5/5
15 year old son is reading it for a school project, said it's an interesting book.
Inspirational! (2010-06-27) : 5/5
While the book does get off to a slow start, don't let that stop you from finishing. This book is life changing. I will never forget the lessons that I have learned from this book. I tell everyone I know about it. A must read!
Rivoting (2010-06-24) : 5/5
If you think America has gone through tough times in recent years, you need to read this book.

I originally anticipated it being about the building of a homemade windmill... It does have to do with that, but it's so much more. The backstory of how he got to that point is quite amazing.

This book is a real incite into African culture, and a great read from start to finish.