I Am Malala

November is the month that Books and Beer Club reads something inspirational. And this year's choice, I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban certainly fit the bill. Malala told her story to Christina Lamb. They are listed as co-authors (although I tend to wonder how much of the writing Malala did).

Malala's story is incredibly inspiring. She had beliefs and a passion, education for girls, and she was willing to do what needed to be done to make her voice heard. Her father ran schools in the Swat Valley of Pakistan. Both girls and boys received an education at his schools. The Taliban came in, forbidding girls to attend school. Malala wanted to be educated and her father was in full support. She continued to go to school.

She started blogging under a pseudonym about what life was like for a girl living under the Taliban. Eventually, she started speaking out. Long after the Taliban "left" the Swat Valley, they were still around and impacting daily life in the life of Malala, her family and her friends. Even after the family was alerted to death threats against Malala, she and her family, her teachers and her classmates, continued to live their lives, attending school, making speeches, going on field trips, being hospitable. The only real change was the way Malala got to and from school. She no longer walked.

On October 9, 2012, at age 15, heading home from school on a school bus, Malala was shot at point blank range by men who were later identified as Taliban. Miraculously, Malala wasn't killed. She was transferred from her local hospital to a larger Pakistani hospital. When the doctors and family (and miliarty officials) realized that Malala couldn't get the rehabilitative services she would need to resume life in Pakistan, she was flown to Birmingham, England which she had several more surgeries and slowly recovered. It's where she and her family were resettled and were living at the time the book was published.

Malala is really something special. In a culture where daughters aren't as "valued" as much as sons, Malala is the sun and the moon to her father. In addition to receiving encouragement from her father, she is also fortified by the strength of her illiterate mother. While still living in Pakistan, Malala received national and international peace awards.  She is also the youngest-ever Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

While Malala's story is incredibly inspiring and I would definitely recommend reading this book, I wasn't totally crazy about the way her story was told. The book didn't have a voice, possibly because it was Malala's story as written by Christina Lamb. When reading memoirs, I prefer them to be written chronologically. And when that can't be done, to be written anecdotally. This book was all over the place, combining Malala's stories with the history of Pakistan and current events. At times, even though I knew a lot of the history and what was going on in the area in the first 10 years of the 21st century, I got very confused.

This book has been on my "to be read" list since I first learned about it and I'm grateful that I was nudged to read this by having Books and Beer Club select this title.