by Simran Jayasinghe
William Kamkwamba lives in a starving, dry, village in Malawi. Crops fail, food runs out, and electricity is sparse. His family is struggling, unable to adequately provide for 9 people. William and his family have to make sacrifices in order to live.
His family go down to having one meal a day, and then down to four handfuls of food a day. William is unable to go on with his schooling due to the fact that his family doesn’t have enough money to pay his school fees. This is a real let down for William. He loves learning, but suddenly, he can’t. He worries that he won’t be able to be anything other than a poor farmer if he can’t get an education. This is important to him because his biggest fear is being stuck working fields like his father. William and his friend go to the library constantly, learning about different concepts through books. One day, William learns about converting kinetic energy in to electricity and is immediately drawn to the idea of making a windmill. William and his friends work together, collecting scrap metal and other odds and ends to make his windmill. He doesn’t give up, even when everyone he knows says he is crazy to try. Read the book to find out more about his story!
This book is a true story. The main character, and author, went on to study at Regents Language Institute in Cambridge UK, and got accepted to Dartmouth college (from which he graduated in 2014), gave a TED talk appearance, and, eventually, became the author of this book. Even though this is a challenging book, I really enjoyed it. Fiction books are usually what I read more, but I really enjoyed this book even though it was nonfiction. I thought it was interesting to follow the author’s story and I really recommend checking this book out if you get the chance!