Achieving the Impossible

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer

(New York, N.Y.: Puffin Books, 2015)

In 1987, William was born to a farming family in Malawi. Surrounded by people afraid of magic, he learned from his Presbyterian father to trust God. Too poor to pay school fees, he found books in a small library, taught himself to read English, and figured out how to build a device that created electricity to power a water pump for his village.  This 290-page autobiography of an intrepid and determined boy will inspire readers 11-years-old and up. [Africa; Electricity; Engineers; Famine; Ingenuity; Inventors; Windmills]

“Creativity is the process of having original ideas that have value. It is a process; it’s not random” – Ken Robinson

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“For a person who grew up in the ’30s and ’40s in the segregated South, with so many doors closed without explanation to me, libraries and books said, ‘Here I am, read me.’ Over time I have learned I am at my best around books.” – Maya Angelou 

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“The best way to not feel hopeless is to get up and do something. Don’t wait for good things to happen to you. If you go out and make some good things happen, you will fill the world with hope, you will fill yourself with hope.” – Barack Obama