Reviews - The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

819 reviews for:

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

William Kamkwamba of Malawi had an affinity and knack for science from a very young age. After a famine causes widespread starvation and financial disaster, William can not afford to go to school, so he starts self-teaching at the local library. When he finds a book on windmills, he determines to build one himself - using nothing more than his own ingenuity, a library textbook, and garbage found in the junkyard. Kamkwamba is clearly a genius, a generous, heart-warming man; unfortunately, I was a bit put-off by the book itself.

leweylibrary's review against another edition

4.25

dark emotional informative inspiring sad medium-paced

The beginning was quite slow for me and there's a couple of spots with a dog that are just not fun--one of which is absolutely gutting--but I learned a lot and holy crap how impressive is it that he did all that just on his own? Plus, of course, lots of library love because access to books there, even old discarded textbooks, allowed him to learn about something he was curious about while he couldn't afford to go to school. I'm really curious where and what he is up to now.

Content Warnings

lydia_bryant's review against another edition

4.75

hopeful informative inspiring fast-paced

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by Willliam Kamkawmba and Bryant Mealer, illustrated by Elizabeth Zunon and published in 2012. This book was written for the age group of five to nine-year-olds. This pictorial biography provides a beautiful illustration of William with the true story of him at age 14, creating the windmill through a great idea and perseverance in Malawi. This author has truly taken the time to research this story to make it authentic carefully. He also provided an in-depth description of the story on the last page to learn more about William and his life. <pictoral biography><nonfiction><science><hopeful><informative><inspiring>

meganreads5's review against another edition

3.75

hopeful informative inspiring medium-paced

siria's review against another edition

3.0

William Kamkwamba is from an isolated village to the north of Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi. The son of farmers, his parents were unable to pay for his school fees after the devastating famine that struck the country in 2002 and he was forced to drop out of school. However, curious and driven to further his own education by any means possible, William worked his way painstakingly through English-language textbooks from a tiny local library—and from one of them was inspired to build a windmill which provided his family with electricity and clean drinking water, and him with the kind of inspirational, attention-grabbing story which means that he is now enrolled as a student at Dartmouth College in the US.

This is an engaging read, clearly written, and I would defy anyone to hear about William's story and not be moved to admiration by his achievements. However, as a book it suffers a little from the fact that it was obviously rushed into publication now, while William is still in the news. There's a lot of padding in here in order to make it properly book length. I can imagine that it's interesting if you know very little about Africa, but having been to East Africa I just found that it dragged and wasn't really relevant. Few people, however famous, write their autobiography at the age of twenty because there's just not that much to tell—what I found myself wishing for most of all was the book that William's going to write in forty or fifty years time, reflecting back on a life that's bound to be full of accomplishments.