In the two books, The Outsiders by S.E Hinton and The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer, the main characters went through a very tough experience and learned lessons that helped them to grow. In The Outsiders, Ponyboy grew up because of some hard situations that helped shape him into a man. In The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, William’s life had many struggles that caused him to want to take control of his own life and become more of a man also. In The Outsiders, on of the characters, Johnny killed one of the Socs, Bob, and they had to go to an old church to hide from the police. They stayed there for a week before Dally, one of their greaser friends, came and took them to Dairy Queen. When they drove back to the church, it was on fire and there were little kids inside. They ran inside and got the kids out. When Ponyboy realized that they were the ones to start the fire because of a cigarette, he said, “I’ll get them, don’t worry!” (78) This shows that Ponyboy was coming of age because he took responsibility for his actions. After this, there were many times where Ponyboy shows that he grew up. He started to work on getting his grades higher and participated in the rumble when he was injured so that he could help his friends. In The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, William also showed coming of age through some …show more content…
He goes through famine, having to drop out of school because his family couldn’t afford to send him and having people tell him that his idea was never going to work. These hard times caused him to need to work and study harder. He made sure that he went to the library and he helped his father with the crops so that they could have more food. After he did poorly on his exams he decided that he would work really hard. “I’d study and become the best student at this village school, then take my JCE exam and impress them all.” (122) All of these tough lessons made him grow up and become more of a