Malala Yousafzai : Warrior With Words - Karen Leggett Abouraya (2014)

          Words are mightier than sword, whether they are on a paper or a blog. This is the story of a warrior who fought with words, for opening access to educate girls in her valley.

A battle for learning

         Malala Yousafzai was born in the 'Swat' valley of Pakistan, a peace haven where tourists come and rejoice the scenic snow-clad mountains and green meadows. Her family, her books and her school formed the life of her. Everything in her life was happiness-filled, until the 'Swat' valley was captured by Taliban.

        With conservative views about women, Taliban ordered to close all the girls' schools. They prohibited women to wear bright colored clothes. This brought out the warrior in Malala, who wrote about the life in 'Swat' valley in her blog and made it to reach the eyes and ears of world. Nothing could stop this warrior in fight, even a bullet through her head.

My Comments:

       After reading about this book from other blogs I follow, I checked it out from library. No disappointments, the book totally raised my admiration level towards it, to high. Introducing a contemporary warrior from a very recent time, is the first great feeling I had about this book. No more, kids could think warriors are legends from old time.

       When the brave biography of Malala Yousafzai is written in a gracious story-telling way, that would have been high enough to praise this book. But the illustrator (or should I say 'art collaborator') has done an extensive work in creating cut-out photo collages of  Malala's life. Than a two-dimensional image, these illustrations give deeper visualizations of the Pakistani girls' dresses and the beauty of Swat valley. The shadowy appearance of Taliban and the gun-shot picture are two well-emoted collages.

       With many positives by side, the only sad part about this book is that it applies to only a limited number of audiences (that is elementary school grades 3 to 5). When the younger elementary kids are not ready for this theme, the simple narration won't work with higher grade kids. But, what else matter, if that book could make my third grader to ask "Why are girls not allowed to study?" (His class consists of equal number of boys and girls) and make me reading a lot of information, to answer that single question, that could possibly alter the status of women's education.

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