Thursday, August 24, 2017

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind--#44 finished

A very good & interesting read about a young teenage boy in Malawi that builds a windmill so he could have electricity for his house.  The book talks about life there in a small rural farming town and how a famine hits the whole country.  This famine causes his family to go from maintaining a reasonable life to struggling to survive.  His parents seem to be intelligent to find ways to make it through even though there is barely any food for the family.  They survive while many thousands others throughout the country starve to death.  Because of this famine and all their money going for food, they cannot pay to keep their son William in school.  William wanting an education starts going to a local library and checking out books and especially likes science books.  Reading about building a windmill, he goes in search of parts in a local dumping area for large items like trucks, tractors, etc that are just wore out as well as trading for needed items, he is able to construct his windmill.  It produces electricity and does so for awhile before it gains the attention of people like radio and newspapers.  From there he gets to go to a TED group in Africa and gains a mentor that also fundraises for him and helps him get into schools to continue his education.  I have not checked online yet to see what has become of him since, that is next.

I will post this on PBS at some point, I think there are 8 or maybe 11 WL for it.

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