The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer's The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind is a true story for 10 year olds about a teenager who built a windmill out of scrap.

What happens

It opens with the machine finished. William climbs the tower, a crowd of the men who laughed at him gathers below, and a tiny bulb in his hand starts to glow. Then he takes you back to the start.

That's a village in Malawi called Masitala, ten mud-brick houses full of his family. William is the only boy among six sisters (people tell him they feel SO sorry for him!). They grow maize, and for most of his life there's no electricity at all, just smoky oil lamps.

It's William telling the story, and he's very good company. He shares the wizards and witch doctors he believed in as a little boy. There's the bubble gum he ate that was supposedly cursed, and the "magic" strength potion that ends with him picking a fight and getting thumped.

Have you ever met a child who takes everything apart to see how it works? That's William at thirteen. He and his cousin Geoffrey open up broken radios and fix them for the neighbours, powered by dead batteries they've dug out of bins. He asks lorry drivers what makes their engines go (nobody knows).

It's the kind of nonfiction that reads like a story. You get the jokes, the slang he shares with his friends and the things he's not proud of. And you get a real sense of how far he has to go from that village to a working windmill.

Worth knowing before you hand it over

Real life is in here, and some of it is hard. William's uncle falls ill and dies early in the book, and he sees his parents cry for the first time. Later a drought hits and the family's crops fail, leaving them with very little to eat.

A child who finds hunger or loss upsetting may need to read this one alongside you. For a reader who's curious about how other children live, it's a brilliant and hopeful true story.

What to read next

If they finish it wanting to try some of this themselves, Catch the Wind, Harness the Sun is in the library too. It starts by asking what life would be like with no electricity, and then shows you where yours comes from.