The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind: Creating Currents of Hope and Electricity by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer is now available at bookstores everywhere. Last night, William and Bryan were at the Barnes & Noble Tribeca to speak and sign books.
I'd been excited about this chance to meet William Kamkwamba ever since I first read his book and learned that he'd be in the U.S. for his book tour. If you'd read my early review, you'd know that I loved the book because the story is told so well, because of the story itself, and because it actually happened. The sympathetic fourteen-year old with the deep curiosity about the world and a strong sense of humor taught himself physics and built a working windmill using a few science books with diagrams (written in a language that he had never learned) after barely surviving the deadly famine in Malawi is now at school and preparing for college.
William's story is just beginning. Meeting him and seeing his intelligence, humor and promise, you can't help but get excited about the different things that he'll accomplish in the coming years.
(William Kamkwamba, Gaby Lapus, Bryan Mealer at B&N Tribeca on Sept. 29, 2009)
On my way home from Barnes & Noble last night, I was thinking of how I'd met three presidents of the Philippines and I'd never been as impressed by them as I was by twenty-year old William.
If you have a chance to meet and hear William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer speak, I recommend that you do. It's a real treat!
