BOOK REVIEW: I Am Malala (Quick Reads Edition 2016) by Malala Yousafzai and Christina Lamb ★★★★☆
"Let us pick up our books and our pens, they are our most powerful weapons, one child, one teacher, one book and one pen can change the world.” – Malala Yousafzai.
On 8th October 2012, Malala Yousafzai took the bus home from school. The Taliban raided the bus full of school children and shot her on the left side of her head. Reason? She wanted girls to have an education and the Taliban abhorred that.
Born in 1997, Malala was born Swat, Pakistan. Writing under the pen name "Gul Makai", She wrote a diary for BBC in early 2009 about the critical situation in Swat at that time. She, later on, won the Nobel Peace Prize 2014 and worked for children rights in her home town. She now lives and studies in the United Kingdom.
Christina Lamb OBE (awarded in 2013) is one of Britain's leading foreign correspondents and journalist. She has won numerous awards, particular in British Press Awards for her coverage of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in 1988 and won the Foreign Press Association award for reporting on Zimbabwean teachers forced into prostitution, and Amnesty International award for the plight of street children in Rio.
Bring these two women together and you have a story of one brave young girl, who despite nearly losing her life never lost her ambition to help for the fight for education.
I was contemplating to read the full version but this abridge version is good enough. It’s the simplest book there is, with short sentences. Although it felt choppy at times, it shows Malala’s humility, bravery and unyielding determination to get through some of the hardships she had to face. As a young British Kashmiri, I did connect with this story, epically when she mentioned October 2005 Earthquake, because some of my close relatives died in that disaster.
However, from this book, I did get this undertone that Pakistanis as a whole are horrid, ignorant and sexist. To me, I would like to say that it’s not true. You might as well say that ALL Chinese people know martial arts, and I don’t know ALL black people listen to Hip-Hop. Don’t be fooled by stereotypes.
I would say this. Every country is not perfect; you have to make it better.
Rating 4/5
Publishers: W&N
Publication Date: February 4th 2016
Genre: Non Fiction/ Autobiography
Comments
Post a Comment