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4.0
emotional hopeful inspiring fast-paced

Fun(ny) fact(s): Summer reading challenge Bingo with the Dayspring youth #20: a book about a place I have not visited!

Favorite quote/image: "A quote I read recently from the great Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. that says, 'If you can't fly, run; if you can't run, walk; if you can't walk, crawl.' We must encourage those still struggling to keep moving forward. My fellow students and I talk about creating a new kind of Africa, a place of leaders instead of victims, a home of innovation rather than charity." (pg. 285-286)

Honorable mention: "This was the same forest where I'd been convinced I'd been bewitched by the bubble gum man, the same forest where I'd accepted magic and been defeated, and now I was back there to cut down trees to build a ladder to science and creation–something greater and more real than any magic in the land." (pg. 199)

Why: Kamkwamba's memoir was a childhood favorite of mine as I was inspired by his story of innovation, love for his family, and perseverance in the face of extreme harship, all made possible with STEM books from a local free library, junk yard scraps, the help of his friends, amd his engineering mind. From being forced to drop out of a school during a national famine to giving a speech at a TED conference, Kamkwamba never loses his grounding in his family's sustenance farm in Kasungu, Malawi, his belief in the power of dreams, and the untapped potential of African ingenuity.