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I Am Malala

The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban

Contributors

By Malala Yousafzai

With Christina Lamb

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Price

$9.99

A MEMOIR BY THE YOUNGEST RECIPIENT OF THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE

As seen on Netflix with David Letterman

“I come from a country that was created at midnight. When I almost died it was just after midday.”

When the Taliban took control of the Swat Valley in Pakistan, one girl spoke out. Malala Yousafzai refused to be silenced and fought for her right to an education.

On Tuesday, October 9, 2012, when she was fifteen, she almost paid the ultimate price. She was shot in the head at point-blank range while riding the bus home from school, and few expected her to survive.

Instead, Malala’s miraculous recovery has taken her on an extraordinary journey from a remote valley in northern Pakistan to the halls of the United Nations in New York. At sixteen, she became a global symbol of peaceful protest and the youngest nominee ever for the Nobel Peace Prize.

I AM MALALA is the remarkable tale of a family uprooted by global terrorism, of the fight for girls’ education, of a father who, himself a school owner, championed and encouraged his daughter to write and attend school, and of brave parents who have a fierce love for their daughter in a society that prizes sons.

I AM MALALA will make you believe in the power of one person’s voice to inspire change in the world.

  • "The touching story will not only inform you of changing conditions in Pakistan, but inspire your rebellious spirit."
    Matthew Love, Time Out New York
  • "Ms. Yousafzai has single-handedly turned the issue of the right of girls--and all children--to be educated into headline news. And she is a figure worth hearing."
    Isabel Berwick, Financial Times
  • "Wise beyond her years...."
    Annie Gowen, Marie Claire
  • "Riveting.... Co-written with Christina Lamb, a veteran British journalist who has an evident passion for Pakistan and can render its complicated history with pristine clarity, this is a book that should be read not only for its vivid drama but for its urgent message about the untapped power of girls.... It is difficult to imagine a chronicle of a war more moving, apart from perhaps the diary of Anne Frank. With the essential difference that we lost that girl, and by some miracle, we still have this one."
    Marie Arana, Washington Post
  • "Remarkable...a must-read, first-person account of her journey through global terrorism, her brave, encouraging parents, and her own fight for girls' education."
    MarieClaire.com
  • "The victory of Malala Yousafzai is that she's just getting started."
    Mary Elizabeth Williams, Salon
  • "Briskly written but full of arresting detail.... Striking [and] surprising..."
    Jill Lawless, Associated Press
  • "Ms. Yousafzai's stature as a symbol of peace and bravery has been established across the world..."
    Salman Masood, The New York Times
  • "Not only has Malala Yousafzai become an international symbol of inspiration and bravery, but her survival instilled educators with courage-and is slowly helping make Pakistani schools safer."
    Nick Schifrin, ABC.com
  • "For a teenage girl in a distant corner of the globe to spark life into this movement-against overwhelming odds-is truly extraordinary. The world must not allow Malala's message to die."
    Dallas Morning News
  • "Her powerful message remains undiluted."
    Tina Jordan, Entertainment Weekly
  • "In simple, clear writing, I AM MALALA gives a rare and moving first-person glance into what it's like to be a teenager in a country seized by extremists who stand against the basic freedoms you believe in."
    Krystin Arneson, Bustle
  • "Malala matters....In her modesty and dignity, she should be Islam's beloved daughter, her journey a return to the early promise of Muslim modernism."
    Fouad Ajami, New York Post
  • "Incredibly inspirational.... Malala is intelligent and fiery with dreams of changing the world, but the book has the added benefit of being a true story that is easily interwoven with important global issues such as human rights, development, education, and peace.... If there is one thing that I AM MALALA should teach us, it is to look beyond Manichean narratives of good and evil. It is important to applaud Malala for the awareness she has built around important issues like education for young women."
    Cristina Maza, PolicyMic
  • "Riveting.... [Malala's] clear voice [is] beautifully captured by Lamb."
    Rafia Zakaria, Ms. Magazine
  • "A gripping story.... What makes this book so important is not just the universal value of Malala's cause.... It's the relevance of her story to one of the most vexing security questions in today's crazy world...."
    Trudy Rubin, Philadelphia Inquirer
  • "An inspiring, clearly written memoir that offers a glimpse of an extraordinary young woman and the confounding world from which she comes."
    Karen Sandstrom, Cleveland Plain Dealer
  • "One hears some ghosts of Anne Frank in reading I AM MALALA, the flightiness, effervescence and, well...girlishness of an adolescent girl flung once again the indifferent violence of inhuman men, like flowers hurled against a stone wall."
    Leonard Pitts Jr., Miami Herald
  • "An eye-opener in the fight for girls' education equality."
    More
  • "The voice that beams, 'I am Malala' is the voice that continues to meet the assassin's challenge. It is the voice of a courageous campaigner who still fights for girls' education. The voice of an icon who may one day be able to return to her country, but who even from afar symbolizes its noblest cause."
    Shehryar Fazli, Los Angeles Review of Books
  • "Her riveting story should be read not only for its vivid drama but also for its urgent message about the untapped power of girls."
    Washington Post

On Sale
Oct 7, 2014
Page Count
320 pages
Publisher
Back Bay Books
ISBN-13
9780316377560

Malala Yousafzai

About the Author

Malala Yousafzai is a cofounder and board member of Malala Fund. Malala began her campaign for education at age eleven, when she anonymously blogged for BBC Urdu about life under the Taliban in Pakistan's Swat Valley. Inspired by her father's activism, Malala soon began advocating publicly for girls' education, attracting international media attention and awards. At age fifteen, she was attacked by the Taliban for speaking out. Malala recovered in the United Kingdom and continued her fight for girls. In 2013, she founded Malala Fund with her father, Ziauddin. A year later, Malala received the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of her efforts to see every girl complete twelve years of free, safe, and quality education. She is a graduate of Oxford University, with a degree in philosophy, politics, and economics. Malala's books include I Am Malala: How One Girl Stood Up for Educationand Changed the World, We Are Displaced, and Malala's Magic Pencil

Mariam Quraishi is an illustrator and designer based in New York City. A graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, she works in watercolor and gouache. When she’s not thinking about books you can find her day dreaming about the flowers from her hometown in Karachi, Pakistan  and tending to her many orchid plants. Mariam is also the illustrator of the picture book ONE WISH: Fatima Al-Fihri and the World’s Oldest University. You can visit her online at mariamquraishi.com. 

 

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