nerd teacher [books] reviewed I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai
The 'Young Reader' version of this book is the superior one.
3 stars
Everyone knows Malala's story... or so they think. If I were to judge what people know based on the students I interact with, they only know that she was shot by the Taliban (and a handful might recognise that she's received the Nobel Peace Prize). So many people are unaware of what happened prior, what work led to her being targeted, how she grew up into a family of people who wanted girls and women to achieve equality.
There is a lot that I didn't actually know about her until I read this, and there's still a lot that I don't know. One of the reasons I bought this is that I didn't really like the samples of writing I read in the original (with Christine Lamb); it felt too much like someone else, not her (based only on her speeches). As this is the 'teen edition', the language feels …
Everyone knows Malala's story... or so they think. If I were to judge what people know based on the students I interact with, they only know that she was shot by the Taliban (and a handful might recognise that she's received the Nobel Peace Prize). So many people are unaware of what happened prior, what work led to her being targeted, how she grew up into a family of people who wanted girls and women to achieve equality.
There is a lot that I didn't actually know about her until I read this, and there's still a lot that I don't know. One of the reasons I bought this is that I didn't really like the samples of writing I read in the original (with Christine Lamb); it felt too much like someone else, not her (based only on her speeches). As this is the 'teen edition', the language feels so much closer to the way she talks; it feels more like her, even though it was written with Patricia McCormick. It feels more like she edited it for flow and nuance than completely altering the words of Malala.
The one thing I dislike about this edition is that it removes a lot of necessary history. While the original version starts off focused on her father (in a way that felt weird for a book written about Malala), this version avoids that to its benefit. (Not that I want to know nothing of her father, but it felt disconnected in the way it was authored from her own story.) Along with that removal, it also pulls or relocates information about the history of Pakistan and the culture in Swat (versus the rest of the country).
It's weird because it is that history that makes her who she is; she wouldn't have been in the position she was (in terms of being targeted by the Taliban) if the history prior didn't happen. In that regards, it's necessary to discuss; it's sort of like people think teenagers wouldn't be interested at all. (And if we've been watching the news, we know teenagers have incredible depth of knowledge when we encourage it and provide the access to resources; this makes it feel like an irony, considering that is the very thing she advocates for.)
