First published 2009
William Kamkwamba grows up in Malawi, where electricity reaches only two percent of the population and drought threatens his family's survival. In 2002, famine devastates his country and forces his parents into poverty. Unable to afford the eighty-dollar annual school fees, fourteen-year-old William drops out to help his family search for food while thousands starve around them. He refuses to abandon his education entirely. Armed with discarded science textbooks and unwavering curiosity, William discovers a book about windmills that sparks an ambitious plan. His neighbors call him misala, crazy, as he scavenges tractor parts, bicycle pieces, and scrap metal from junkyards. Working with basic tools and fierce determination, he constructs a functioning windmill that generates electricity for four lights in his home. He builds homemade switches and fashions a circuit breaker from nails and wire. His second windmill powers a water pump to combat the seasonal droughts. Word of his "electric wind" spreads beyond his village borders, transforming the boy once mocked as crazy into a symbol of hope and innovation.
Genres: coming-of-age, agriculture, non-fiction, biography-memoir, 21st-century, africa
Vibes: inspirational, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: against-all-odds, overcoming-adversity, perseverance
Setting: Malawi
Period: 2002
270 pages · Hardcover · William Morrow