Even One Voice: Free As a Bird: The Story of Malala by Lina Maslo

When Malala was born, people sighed and said,"Too bad...." They whispered, "... a girl! What bad luck."

But her father looked into her eyes and fell in love.

Although many people in Pakistan believed that girls did not need an education, Malala's father was headmaster of a school for boys and girls, and Malala began her school days early, sitting and listening as her father taught the older children, and it soon became clear that she was a very talented student.

But she also learned that in Pakistan women did not have the rights offered to males.

They had to hide their faces. They were expected to marry young and have children.

But Malala's father saw that she was as intelligent as her brothers and resolved that she should get the same education and choose what she did with her own life. But the Taliban, who had taken over their province, disapproved of female education and forced many of the schools open to girls to be shuttered. Malala's father managed to send her to a school open to girls, but one day their bus was attacked by the Taliban and Malala almost died.

But Malala and her family did not give up. She continued to study in England and finished her education there, but she did not give up working and speaking for the right to education for girls everywhere. She spoke to prime ministers  and parliaments and queens and international organizations. She became the world's youngest Nobel Peace Prize winner.

"I speak for all girls and boys and their right to be educated.

One child, one teacher, one book can change the world."

Lina Maslo's Free as a Bird: The Story of Malala (Balzer and Bray, 2018) is an excellent introduction for primary students to the early life of Malala Yousafzai, the heroine of universal education for all. Author Maslo's prose narrative is simple but moving, and artist Maslo's striking illustrations build tension as Malala struggles to elude the Taliban who would keep her, faceless and without a voice, at home. Artist Maslo uses color symbolically, a double page spread, a slash of red and black to portray the nearly fatal Taliban attack, and red to associate her triumph to be "free as a bird" to follow her dreams. All in all, this book is an emotionally effective way to convey the importance of personal freedom and the quest for education for all that Malala Yousafzai has come to represent.

For young scholars doing their first biography book reports, Maslo offers an appendix with author's note, a timeline, a brief summary of Yousafzai's role in education, and a list of media resources which includes books, films, and websites.

"One Pen Can Change the World:" Malala's Magic Pencil by Malala Yousafzai

When I was little I used to watch a TV show about a boy who had a magic pencil.If he was hungry, he drew a bowl of curry. He drew a little hero, always protecting people who needed help.

How I wanted a magic pencil, too!

Kids often wish for a magic pencil or magic wand or super powers, that they could be a star in the sports or movies, make school vacation last forever, or as Malala did, to keep her brothers out of her room, but like Malala Yousafzai, they soon find out that there's more to it than wishing.

For what Malala wished for most was just to go to school. The simple freedom for a girl to be allowed to begin middle school was being denied in her regions of Pakistan, and her parents' support and her private girls'school didn't keep her safe, and her reputation as a young blogger led to her being shot by a would-be assassin.

But Malala survived and bravely went on to be the world's advocate for freedom of access to education, becoming the youngest person ever to win the Nobel Peace Prize. In a way, she got her wish. Her words became her magic pencil to influence world opinion about education for girls and for all children.

"One child, one teacher, one book, and one pen can change the world, " she wrote.

Malala Yousafzair's book, Malala's Magic Pencil (Little, Brown and Company, 2017), engagingly  illustrated by the co-artists Keroscoot, describes in her own words how Malala became the world's advocate for girls and women's rights and why education is of prime importance in this world. The New York Times Review says this book is ...a triumph, for it is a story with hard truths, yet it is accessible for young children, an excellent book to begin conversations about world injustice with children."

"I Am Not Afraid:" For the Right to Learn: Malala Yousafzai's Storyby Rebecca Langston-George

NO EDUCATION FOR GIRLS!
GIRLS WHO ATTEND SCHOOL BRING SHAME TO THEIR FAMILIES!

To most kids, going to school is what they do, even though they sometimes wish they didn't have to. But in 2008 in the Swat Valley of Pakistan, under the control of the Taliban, this grim message declared that education was to be only for boys.

But for Malala Yousafzai, a born scholar, going to school was the most important thing in the world.  Supported by her father, who taught girls and boys together at his school, she continued to attend, even when the Taliban forced separate classes and entrances for boys and girls. And when the Taliban forbade girls over ten years from school, she pretended to be younger and slipped in with her identity concealed under a large shawl.

And Malala fought back. Taking the name of an earlier Pakistan freedom fighter, Gul Makai, Malala authored a defiant blog that insisted that girls should have equal education under the law. Despite being driven out of their home by the Taliban and their schools and homes bombed, twelve-year-old Malala and her father continued their opposition. Pakistan named its national prize the Malala Peace Prize and she was interviewed on radio, television and newspapers. Her face became familiar to all--especially to the Taliban.

TALIBAN LEADERS BEGAN TO THREATEN MALALA, SAYING SHE WAS WORKING FOR THE WEST. THEY PUT HER ON THEIR HIT LIST.

BUT MALALA REFUSED TO HIDE. SHE REFUSED TO BE SILENCED.

"THE GIRLS OF SWAT ARE NOT AFRAID OF ANYONE," SHE SAID.

But the Taliban was determined to silence her forever. And one day when Malala and her friends were on their way home in the school bus, the bus was suddenly forced to pull over and a man yanked back the canvas roof cover over their seats.

"WHO IS MALALA?"

NO ONE SPOKE. THE ONLY MOVEMENT WAS THE GIRLS' EYES DARTING IN CONCERN TOWARD THEIR FRIEND

THREE SHOTS SHATTERED THE SILENCE.

Grievously wounded, Malala was flown to England for surgery and a long recovery. But determined, she continued to speak out for the right to women's education from her bed and soon became an international hero, and after being awarded the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize, she addressed the United Nations with a powerful statement of her own creed:

"ONE CHILD, ONE TEACHER, ONE BOOK, AND ONE PEN CAN CHANGE THE WORLD."

There is nothing so liberating as an education, and Rebecca Langston-George's For the Right to Learn: Malala Yousafzai's Story (Encounter: Narrative Nonfiction Picture Books) (Capstone Press, 2015) skillfully tells the true story of the courageous girl who stood up to terrorism to speak for equal opportunity for girls and women all over the world. Few young teenagers have their world view threatened and their resolve tested in the way Malala has, and young readers will have their eyes opened to the price many girls in this world may have to pay for the education that most take for granted.

Author Rebecca Langston-George's narrative is simple but eloquent, letting the subject provide the innate drama and passion in Malala's story and using her own strong words to reveal character. The illustrations by Janna Beck are done in somber tones appropriate to the seriousness of the narrative, and since the characters are mostly portrayed draped in fabric, body language cues are of necessity portrayed, vividly, through their eyes. This slim picture biography is bolstered by an author's note, "More about Malala's Story," a glossary, and an index, and a reading of it is a good preface for Malala's memoir, I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban.