First Chapter Friday

I'm back with first chapter friday and this week I wanted to share this book,

It's called I am Malala how one girl stood up for education and changed the world.

This is an autobiography.

So this book was actually written by Malala and her entire life story in this book.

So, I'm going to start with just reading the prologue,

She's just the very beginning. And so if you don't know who Malala is,

she is um

A young lady, she is only 24 right now.

When she was 11 or 12 though,

she began speaking out using her voice and powerful ways to stand up and say,

Hey I and other women or other girls deserve to have the right to go to school and she

um fought for that right to be able to do that

to help herself and to help other girls be educated.

And the reason why she had to do that was because in her home,

which is in Pakistan Pakistan, she lived in Swat Valley,

the Taliban,

which is a terrorist group came in and they started

making people do certain things and not do certain things.

And so one of those rights that were taken away from

girls specifically um was their right to go to school.

And so she and her family thought um that women and girls should be

educated and it's very powerful to be educated and so this is her um

her story of that journey and what life was like before the Taliban,

this terror terrorist group came in and what her life was

like during that time and after And she fought to the extreme

of using her voice in a powerful way to fight for

the rights that the Taliban group actually tried to kill her.

They shot her

and she almost died.

It's a miracle that she's even alive. So this is leading up to her being shot.

When I close my eyes I can see my bedroom.

The bed is unmade,

my fluffy blanket in a heap because I've rushed out for school late for an exam.

My school schedule is open on my desk to page dated

October 9th 2012

and my school uniform is on a peg on the wall waiting for me.

I can hear the neighborhood kids playing cricket in the alley behind her home.

I can hear the hum of the bazaar not far away

and if I listen very closely I can hear Sophina,

my friend next door

tapping on the wall we share so she can tell me a secret.

I smell rice cooking as my mother works in the kitchen.

I hear my little brothers fighting over the remote the tv switching between W. W. E.

Smackdown and cartoons

Soon I'll hear my father's deep voice as he calls out my nickname

johnny he'll say which is Persian for dear one, how is the school running today.

He was asking how things were at the cashel school for girls which he

founded and I attended but I always

took the opportunity to answer the question literally

Abba I joke

the school was walking, not running.

This was my way of telling him, I thought things could be better.

I left that beloved home in Pakistan one morning planning to dive back under

the covers as soon as school let out and ended up a world away.

Some people say it's too dangerous for me to go back there now that I'll never

be able to return and so from time to time I go there in my mind,

but now another family lives in that home.

Another girl sleeps in that bedroom while I am thousands of miles away.

I don't care much about the other things in my room

but I do worry about the school trophies on my bookcase.

I even dream about them. Sometimes

There's a runners up award from this first

speaking contest I ever entered in more than

45 Golden Cups and medals for being first

in my class and exams debates and competitions

to someone else. They might seem mere trinkets made of plastic

to someone else. They may simply look like prizes for good grades,

but to me,

they are reminders of the life I loved and the

girl I was before I left home that fateful day

when I open my eyes, I'm in my new bedroom,

it is in a sturdy brick house in a damp and chilly place called Birmingham England

here, there is water running from every tap hot or cold as you like.

No need to carry cans of gas for market to heat the water

here there are large rooms with shiny wood floors filled with large furniture.

In a large, large tv.

Yeah,

there's hardly a sound in this calm leafy suburb.

No Children laughing and yelling,

no women downstairs chopping vegetables and gossiping with my mother,

no men smoking cigarettes and debating politics

sometimes though

even with these thick walls between us I can hear someone in my family crying for home

but then my father will burst through the front door, his voice booming johnny,

he'll say how was school today?

No, there's no play on words.

He's not asking about the school he runs and I attend

but there's a note of worry in his voice as if

he fears I won't be there to reply because it was

not so long ago that I was nearly killed simply because

I was speaking out about my right to go to school.

It was the most ordinary days.

I was 15 in Grade nine and I stayed up

far too late the night before studying for an exam.

I already heard the rooster crow at dawn that had fallen back to sleep.

I had heard the morning call to prayer from

the mosque nearby but managed to hide under my quilt

and I pretended not to hear my father come to wake me.

Then my mother came and gently shook my shoulder.

Wake up,

She said,

it's 7:30 and you're late for school.

I have an exam on Pakistani studies. So I said a quick prayer to God,

but as your will, may I please come in first?

I whispered,

Oh and thank you for all my success so far.

I grew up down a bit of fried egg and cheese patty of my tea.

My youngest brother at all was especially cheeky mood that morning.

He was complaining about all the attention I had received for

speaking out about girls getting the same education as boys.

And my father teased him a little bit at the breakfast table

when Malala is prime Minister some day you can be her secretary, he said.

I told the little clown in the family, pretended to be cross.

No, he's cried, she'll be my secretary.

All this banter nearly made me late and I raced out the door,

my half eaten breakfast still on the table.

I ran down the lane just in time to see the

school bus crammed with other girls on their way to school.

I jumped in that Tuesday morning and never looked back at my home.

The right to school was quick,

just five minutes up the road and along the river

I arrived on time. An exam day passed as it always did.

The chaos of Mingora City surrounded us with the talking horns and

factory noises while we worked silently

been over our papers and hush concentration

by day's end I was tired but happy.

I knew I had done well on my test.

Let's stay on for the second trip. Said money to my best friend.

That way we can chat a little longer.

We always like to stay on for the late pickup

for days. I had a strange knowing feeling that something bad was going to happen.

One night I had found myself wandering, wondering about death.

What is being dead? Really like?

I wanted to know

I was alone in my room. So I turned towards Mecca and asked God,

what happens when you die? I said,

how would it feel if I died?

I wanted to be able to tell people what it felt like Malala, you silly girl.

I said to myself,

you'd be dead and you couldn't tell people what it was like

before I went to bed.

I asked God for one more thing,

can I die a little bit and come back so I can tell people about it.

But the next day had dawned bright and sunny

and so had the next one

and the one after that.

And now I knew I had done well on my exam.

Whatever cloud had been hanging over my head

had begun to clear away.

So Monica and I did what we always did.

We had a good gossip

face cream. Was she using can one of the male teachers gone for baldness here

and now that the first exam was over, how difficult would the next one be

when our bus was called. We ran down the steps as usual.

Manitoba and the other girls covered their heads and faces before

we stepped outside the gate and got into the waiting bus.

And as usual, how our driver was ready with a magic trick to amuse us.

That day, he made a pebble disappear.

No matter how hard we tried, we couldn't figure out his secret.

He piled inside 20 girls and two teachers crammed into the

three rows of benches stretching down the length of the bus.

It was hot and sticky

and there were no windows,

just a yellowed plastic sheet that flapped against the side as we bounced along.

Mongers crowded rush hour streets.

Haji baba road was a jumble of brightly colored rickshaw women and flowing robes,

men on scooters honking and zigzagging through the traffic,

we passed a shopkeeper butchering chickens, a boy selling ice cream cones,

a billboard for Doctor who millions.

Hair transplant institute. Monica and I were deep in conversation.

I had many friends, but she was a friend of my heart,

the one with whom I shared everything

that day when we were talking about who would get the highest Marxist term.

One of the other girls started a song and the rest of us joined in.

Just after we passed the little giant snack factoring the bend in the road.

Not more than three minutes from my house,

the van slowed to a halt.

It was oddly quiet outside.

It's so calm today, I said to Manitoba,

where are the people?

I don't remember anything after that. But here's a story that's been told to me.

Two young men in white robes stepped in front of the truck.

Is this the castle school bus? One of them asked.

The driver laughed. The name of the school was painted in black letters on the side.

The other young men jumped under the tail board and

leaned into the back where we were all sitting.

Who was Malala? He asked.

No one said a word, but a few girls looked in my direction.

He raised his arm and pointed at me.

Some of the girls screamed and I squeezed my neighbor's hand

who is Malala?

I am Malala and this is my story.

And so then the store, the book starts out with part one before the Taliban.

And so the book is broken up and I think five different yeah,

five different parts that just kind of outlined

each season of her life that's important.

So part One is before the taliban. So before the terrorist group took over,

Part two is a shadow over our valley.

So I'm assuming that's when the Taliban started to take over her home.

Part three is finding my voice.

So when she started speaking out for her right and others rights

part forest targeted. So I'm assuming that's kind of when she was shot and there was

a death threat made against her

Part five is a new life far from home.

And so this isn't after she was shot and what life looked like.

Um, and her healing looked like. Beyond that.

This is a really powerful book about a powerful person who is an activist.

She started as a teenager well before she was a teenager at 11 and 12,

standing up for the rights of herself and others.

She is um

really well known.

She still does a lot of work for promoting education for every,

every kid in the entire world.

And so you can check out her website and read

this book if you want to know more about her,

hope you enjoy it.

First Chapter Friday

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