Malala’s book

I’ve had Malala’s book on my shelf for 10 years, and never read it yet! So I finally picked it up and on page 100 what did I find:

Would you look at that? No one wonder the US govt doesn’t complain when other highly-esteemed countries do the same thing — those highly-esteemed countries learned it from us. I especially appreciate that twenty years ago, the blaming everything on “tunnels” was already a part of the playbook.

I also have concluded that Malala herself probably didn’t write much of this book. Most of it is not about her, instead it’s an accounting of all the political and military problems, plus natural disasters, her corner of Pakistan endured from her birth to when she was shot. There’s great details about bombings and assassinations that happened when she was 7 and 10. I mean, what 7 and 10 year old pays attention to stuff like that, and could then recite from memory all the events?

And if we assume that she, in lieu of memory, did a great deal of research … well … the book was published a year after her shooting, and she spent many months of that year in the hospital or in rehabilitation. So how did she also do oodles and oodles of research into her country’s history? Not to say it wasn’t interesting! It was interesting to learn how a quiet mountain valley got engulfed by huge problems. But I’d say it was mostly the memories of her father, and the research of the war correspondent who is listed as the co-author, who actually wrote the book.

Unbeknownst to me when I started reading the book, Malala actually just published a second memoir. So on my last trip to the library, I looked for it, and I think I’m the very first to check it out! I started reading it — now we are getting the real Malala in her own words, not a sanitized “saint-like” portrait that was devised for her in the first book.

Just one example — in the first book, Malala’s mom is portrayed a little inconsistently. If you just read the words, she’s shown to be a very loving mother and generous neighbor. But sometimes, I felt I was picking up on a bit of hesitation or inconsistency in how she’s described. Now, in this second book, it all comes out: Malala’s mom was always shouting at her (or even physically rebuking her) when she was growing up, and they didn’t have a very easy relationship, either pre- or post-shooting.