THE BOY WHO HARNESSED THE WIND PAPER

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Have you ever met anyone who can build a functioning windmill from scratch with little education? William Kamkwamba, the author and autobiographer of The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, tells us his incredible life story, complete with famine, hardships, and triumph in the city of Malawi, Africa. Throughout the book, we see William grow and change as he and his family battle poverty and other losses. With William’s help, we begin to notice elements of his culture contrasted to our own, and cultural diffusion between Malawi and the USA.
When William was a young boy, he and his family moved to Malawi in order to join a family business. Soon, William and his father begin to help his Uncle John and his cousin Geoffrey run the family’s farm. In his spare time, William, his cousin Geoffrey, and their friend Gilbert tried to start a radio fixing business. The business eventually allows William to realize that he wanted to be a scientist when he grew up. William begins to try to shape his life around his goal. However, Malawi begins to experience a tough, long famine with the promised government aid never arriving. The famine prevents William’s family from paying for his education. However William doesn’t stop his education there. He begins to study, almost daily, in the library. With the help of friends and family, William builds a functioning windmill, giving his town free power and giving himself tons of recognition. Someone from one of the top schools William wanted to get into comes to check out his windmill,introducing him to a journalist and launching himself into the world. William soon makes it to the US, where he is introduced to the internet and other things we take for granted here in the USA. Throughout his life William ...

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...grew up in this small place in Africa, we did many of the same things children do all over the world, only with slightly different materials. And talking with friends I’ve met from America and Europe, I now know this is true... If you look at it this way, the world isn’t so big”(). William has taken the roots of any culture or country; it’s children, and said that no matter where they come from, they all play the same way, drawing the world even closer together.

William’s story tells us of hardship, more than any of us will probably ever experience, triumph, and how the will of one person can change so much. He explains to us his culture, relating it to examples we know so well, and showing how the world is slowly coming together by cultural diffusion. Overall, I would recommend this book because it is very eye opening and inspiring to young minds like ours.

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