‘The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind‘ is a picture book written by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer, and illustrated uniquely by Elizabeth Zunon. It tells the story of William Kamkwamba, a fourteen-year-old boy at the time. He lived in a small village in Malawi where people had no money for light. As soon as nightfall came, people had to go home because nothing could be done. But for William, the darkness was great for dreaming of breaking things and taking them apart. He would wonder why he could hear the music in radios, if there wasn’t a band. The next day, he saw a truck and thought about what made it move. However, when the scorching sun came up, all the food turned into dust since there wasn’t any water. William was only allowed one small meal a day, and had to drop out of school as his family didn’t have money. But then he remembered the library, and found science books, and with his english dictionary, he was able to put together a sentence. “Windmills can produce electricity and pump water”. So, he went to find scrap materials, and started to build a windmill. People doubted him at first, but when he showed the lightbulb he lit up, people cheered.

I could make several connections to this story. I’m really lucky to be born here in Canada, where we take water, energy, and food for granted. There has never been a single day where I had no water or food. William had only one meal per day, when I have access to practically as much food and water as I want. All I have to do is open the fridge. Also, I’m literally typing on a thousand-dollar computer, but in William’s village, they didn’t even have light. Secondly, I can connect this to our previous science unit when we learned about renewable energy and how wind can create electricity. These energy sources are better for the environment and although may be expensive to establish, they will usually save you money in the long run.

All in all, William is extremely smart in my opinion, and helped his village have light.