The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
A teacher’s look at why this book belongs in the Read-to-Me, Read-by-Me stage.
Why it fits Read-to-Me, Read-by-Me (for the kindergarten-ready set, between being read to and reading alone)
A Malawian teenager builds a windmill from scrap and saves his village. Ingenuity, library books, and persistence - a true story children can act on. The picture-book edition distills it perfectly for this age.
What makes it special
A teenager, a drought, a library book, and a windmill built from scrap — persistence rendered in its purest documented form. Elizabeth Zunon's oil-and-collage spreads make the machine rising from junk look like the magic it functionally was. For children who summon everything by tapping glass, it shows power built by hand.
From the publisher
William Kamkwamba was born in Malawi, a country where magic ruled and modern science was mystery. It was also a land withered by drought and hunger, and a place where hope and opportunity were hard to find. But William…
About William Kamkwamba
At fourteen, after his family could no longer afford his school fees during a drought in Malawi, William Kamkwamba built an electricity-generating windmill out of scrap parts that brought power to his family's home and helped them pump water for their land. He went on to Dartmouth College, became a TED Fellow, and co-founded the Moving Windmills Project; his memoir with Bryan Mealer was adapted into this picture book and into a Netflix film.
Out of school, Kamkwamba kept learning with the help of the village librarian, and built the windmill from a photograph in a high-school physics textbook called Using Energy — with no instructions and no formal training.
Also by this author: The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (Young Readers Edition)
More from “True Stories, Big World”
This book is part of The Best Books for Beginning Readers: 30 Teacher Picks (Read-to-Me, Read-by-Me) in our guide The Best Children’s Books by Age — 120 books chosen by the Montessori-certified teachers at Creative Minds Montessori in Frisco, TX. Come see how we build readers →
Nobody paid for this review — not the author, not the publisher — and the store link above earns us nothing. Our only interest is the reader this book fits.