I Am Malala

Malala Yousafzai grows up in the Swat Valley of northwest Pakistan, where her father runs a school for girls. When the Taliban take control of the valley and ban girls from classrooms, she starts speaking publicly and writing a blog on the right to be educated.

A Taliban gunman shoots her on her school bus on 9 October 2012. She receives treatment in Pakistan and then at a hospital in Birmingham, England, where she recovers and carries on her campaign.

This is a memoir told in the first person, written with the journalist Christina Lamb. It sets Malala's own life beside the area's past, the origins of her family and the growth of militant groups in Swat. The book also draws a line from those events to her Nobel Peace Prize in 2014.

The prose is clear and direct. It moves between ordinary school days and political upheaval, so the reader sees how daily life in the valley shifts under Taliban rule. It suits anyone who wants a personal account of that period in Swat, or the path of one young activist. A separate Young Readers Edition exists for a younger audience.