I Am Malala

The title of this remarkable account comes from the incident in which Malala was shot by the Taliban on a school bus in October 2012. A terrorist boarded the bus and asked who was a Malala, and this was her reply. She was shot through the head and the other two bullets wounded her friends sitting next to her. I bought this book in Belfast airport because so many young people had written about Malala as an inspirational figure in this year's Inspire> Aspire poster awards, more than anyone else except Nelson Mandela. I thought I ought to know more about her story.

The book begins with her family background and the importance of her father as an educator and activist. Descriptions of conditions after floods, earthquakes and attacks by the Taliban bring home the enormous challenges faced by Pakistan and the effects on everyday life. Education, especially for girls, is the passport to a successful professional life and emancipation. The Taliban were determined to stop this and in the process destroyed over 400 schools – a track record in some respects worse than the Inquisition, and quite incredible to the liberal western mind. Malala describes how the Taliban took their music, their Buddhas and their history, and in particular the influence of a local radio station calling for all kinds of militant destructive action. This culminated in a ban on girls attending school.

Malala felt she had to speak out and began a widely read blog. Her inspiration was Benazir Bhutto, who was herself assassinated. At the time, Malala asked herself why she did not go out and fight for women's rights and was galvanised to do so. She thought to herself that if one man can destroy everything, why can't one girl change it, praying to God every night for strength to pursue this goal. She was also inspired by Anne Frank, and her exposure through the BBC made her realise that the pen can be much more powerful than machine guns, tanks and helicopters. She was learning how powerful we are when we speak. Throughout all this, her father had considerable financial challenges as the closure of his school meant that he still had to pay his teachers without any income. They also had to leave their village and become internationally displaced persons.

Gradually, her work began to receive recognition, for instance through the award of a peace prize by the Pakistani government on the recommendation of Archbishop Desmond Tutu. This increased her resolve to become a politician and make a further difference. Her father realised that he was in danger, but little did he think that his daughter was as well, so that when she was shot, he felt responsible for encouraging her to speak out. However, this was her own conviction. The narrative moves on to describe the shooting and its extraordinary aftermath with the outrage in the international press and the enormous help given to transfer her to a hospital in Birmingham where she would receive the necessary treatment.

Malala now feels she has been given a second life and can dedicate herself to the cause of girl's education around the world. There are currently 57 million children not in primary school, 32 million of them girls. In Pakistan this figure is 5.1 million and there are almost 50,000,000 illiterate adults, two thirds of whom are women. In a message to the UN in New York, she urged world leaders to provide free education to every child in the world: ' let us pick up our books and pens, they are most powerful weapons. One child, one teacher, one book and one pen can change the world.' For this she received a standing ovation. Interested readers can support the Malala Fund (www.malalafund.org). The story can also inspire us to speak out about the issues on which we are most passionate, and future education of girls is one such critical issue for the future.