The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Young Readers Edition

This memoir by William Kamkwamba, co-written with journalist Bryan Mealer, tells the true story of a boy in rural Malawi who, after being forced to drop out of school during a devastating famine, taught himself science from library books and built a working windmill from scrapyard parts to bring electricity and water to his family.

The book opens at the moment of William's triumph. He stood atop a homemade tower, preparing to test a machine built from salvaged materials: welded steel, plastic blades, rusted tractor parts, and an old bicycle frame. He connected a small lightbulb to the machine's wires and waited as the wind caught the blades. The bulb flickered, then glowed brightly. The crowd below gasped and declared that the boy had "made electric wind."

William then introduces his world. Malawi is a small, landlocked nation in southeastern Africa, and his home village of Masitala, near the town of Wimbe, consisted of about ten mud-brick houses belonging to his extended family. His household included his parents and six sisters, and the family grew maize, their most essential crop. Most Malawians were poor farmers without electricity or easy access to doctors, leading many to seek help from sing'anga, or witch doctors. William grew up immersed in belief in magic, though his father, a devout Presbyterian, dismissed these beliefs. A childhood experience pushed William toward reason: He paid a boy to rub a powder supposedly granting mangolomera, or superhuman strength, into cuts on his knuckles, but when he tested the magic by picking a fight, he was soundly beaten.

William describes a childhood of improvisation shared with his cousin Geoffrey and their friend Gilbert, the son of the district chief. They built toy trucks from beer cartons, raced wagons, and played soccer with balls of wadded plastic bags. Tragedy struck in January 1997, when William was nine: His Uncle John was diagnosed with tuberculosis and died before reaching the hospital. Geoffrey, Uncle John's son, was left fatherless. Shortly after, a dog named Khamba arrived with another uncle's family. William and Khamba became inseparable, hunting birds together in the nearby forest.

At thirteen, William's curiosity shifted toward science. He and Geoffrey began disassembling radios to understand how they worked and grew fascinated by dynamos, small generators on bicycle wheels that power headlamps. When they connected a dynamo to a radio and spun the wheel, the radio played music, and they inadvertently discovered the difference between alternating current (AC) and direct current (DC). William began dreaming of generating his own electricity. Only about eight percent of Malawians had power; the rest relied on smoky kerosene lanterns and went to bed at seven each evening.

Disaster struck in December 2000 when the government ended fertilizer subsidies. Heavy floods washed away seedlings, followed by drought. The family harvested only five bags of maize; corrupt officials had sold the country's emergency grain reserves. The price of maize skyrocketed. The family reduced to one meal per day: a shrinking blob of nsima, or maize porridge. Geoffrey, diagnosed with anemia from malnutrition, dropped out of school for ganyu, or day labor. Khamba grew skeletal. Christmas 2001 arrived without celebration; William and his cousin Charity boiled a discarded goatskin and ate the tough strips as their holiday meal. William enrolled at Kachokolo Secondary but dropped out in February when his family could not pay fees.

Weeks later, Khamba could barely stand. William and Charity led the dog into the forest. William called "Let's go hunting!" to coax Khamba forward, then tied him to a tree with bark rope. As William walked away, Khamba raised his head and whined. Two days later, William and Charity returned to find Khamba dead in the same position, the rope undisturbed. William dug a grave, buried the dog with no marker, and told no one.

Cholera swept the district. Geoffrey's legs swelled with kwashiorkor, a condition caused by severe protein deficiency. William's own bones showed through his skin. The family watched their maize crop grow, counting the days until the green ears, called dowe, ripened enough to eat. When the kernels finally felt firm, they pulled armfuls of cobs and roasted them. Geoffrey's swelling subsided. The family had survived.

Though the harvest restored the district, William's parents still could not afford school fees. He discovered the library at Wimbe Primary, stocked with donated American books. He found Explaining Physics, a British textbook that answered his questions about engines, batteries, and motors. Then he found an American textbook called Using Energy whose cover featured a row of windmills. William realized that wind could spin blades just as a rider pedals a bicycle dynamo, generating electricity. A windmill could power lights, replace kerosene lanterns, and pump water for irrigation, preventing future famine. He declared to Gilbert, "I'm going to build a windmill."

He built a small model from a plastic jar and a motor from a salvaged cassette player; when wind spun the blades and a connected radio played music, the concept was proven. He scavenged parts from an abandoned scrapyard, convinced his father to donate a broken bicycle as the frame, and enlisted Geoffrey and Gilbert to help. Gilbert bought a dynamo with his own money, completing the final piece. They built a fifteen-foot tower from blue-gum trees and hoisted the machine to the top. Before a crowd of skeptical onlookers, William climbed the tower, connected a lightbulb, and released the wheel. The blades spun and the bulb glowed. The crowd erupted in cheers. William ran wire to his bedroom and, for the first time, read by electric light.

He expanded the system, adding a transformer for charging mobile phones, a car battery for storing power, and bulbs throughout the house. A teacher at Wimbe Primary invited him to start a science club, where he built a small demonstration windmill. Officials inspecting the school library noticed the device and contacted Dr. Hartford Mchazime, a senior education official. Dr. Mchazime drove five hours to Wimbe, arranged media coverage, and secured William's readmission to school. The Daily Times ran the headline: "School Dropout with a Streak of Genius." The story eventually reached Emeka Okafor, program director of the TED Global Conference, who tracked William down.

William was selected as a TED Fellow, a participant chosen to attend and present at the conference. He flew to Arusha, Tanzania, where Tom Rielly, a conference organizer, introduced him to the Internet for the first time. On stage, shaking under bright lights, William delivered his story in halting English, concluding, "I try, and I made it." The audience gave him a standing ovation.

Tom raised money from attendees and visited Malawi to help upgrade the compound with proper wiring, solar panels, and a lightning rod. TED donations allowed William to install iron-sheet roofs on the family homes, put relatives back in school, and drill a borehole for clean drinking water. A solar-powered pump piped water to the fields, enabling a second maize harvest. He built the "Green Machine," a larger windmill that irrigated a garden where his mother grew vegetables to eat and sell. His parents nicknamed him Noah, after the biblical figure mocked for building an ark that saved his family.

William later received a scholarship to the African Leadership Academy in Johannesburg, South Africa, and eventually graduated from Dartmouth College with an engineering degree. He founded the Moving Windmills Project, a nonprofit rebuilding schools and installing computers in Wimbe, and sent his sisters to school, with Doris studying nursing and Aisha studying rural development. At the Palm Springs wind farm in California, he stood among over six thousand towering windmills and felt he had come full circle. Planning to return to Africa, he envisioned an innovation hub for developing affordable technologies for clean water, electricity, and housing. He concludes by telling young readers that dreams and ideas are "tiny miracle machines inside you that no one can touch" and that "if you want to make it, all you have to do is try."