I Am Malala Mosaic by Brooklyn Duplessis

About Malala Yousafzai

brooklynduplessis — 2025-08-19 17:35:46 UTC

Malala Yousafzai is recognized for her courage and advocacy for girl's education in her community and universal access to education. She is most well known for being targeted and shot in the head by the Taliban in October 2012. Yousafzai won Pakistan's National Youth Peace Prize in 2011 and was nominated for the International Children's Peace Prize in 2011 as well. She also started the Malala Fund, a nonprofit organization that invest in community-led programs and supports education advocates world-wide.

First Person Point of View

leahbarton1 — 2025-08-20 17:21:02 UTC

The book's point of view is written in first person. This allows the author to fully express how she felt during the events and made the readers feel as though they were involved in the story themselves.

I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai

brooklynduplessis — 2025-08-20 17:25:21 UTC

Brooklyn Duplessis and Leah Barton

Theme

leahbarton1 — 2025-08-20 17:37:23 UTC

Malala's main theme of the story was her drive to help people. She was determined to get women's rights to education and didn't stop until she felt like she achieved that.

Malala Yousafzai

brooklynduplessis — 2025-08-20 17:44:28 UTC

This book is about Malala Yousafzai, a young girl who advocated for girl's education in Pakistan. This book matters because it tells the story of the struggles of the families in Pakistan and how these hardships helped shape Yousafzai into the passionate, courageous, and determined young women she is today.

Simile

leahbarton1 — 2025-08-21 17:13:50 UTC

“Once I had asked God for one or two extra inches in height, but instead he made me as tall as the sky, so high that I could not measure myself.” Page 313. This quote really exaggerates to the reader how much growth she had gotten.

Malala Yousafzai

brooklynduplessis — 2025-08-21 17:22:30 UTC

Malala Yousafzai is an intelligent, empathetic, brave, strong, empowering, and courageous woman.

Ziauddin Yousafzai

brooklynduplessis — 2025-08-21 17:24:21 UTC

Ziauddin Yousafzai, Malala Yousafzai's dad, is a motivated, determined, passionate, hardworking, persistent, generous and loving man.

Tone

leahbarton1 — 2025-08-21 17:26:15 UTC

“The Taliban could take our pens and books, but they couldn’t stop our minds from thinking.” Page 146. This adds to the tone of Malala's determination to still get women's right to education. It shows that no matter what, she'll keep trying.

Imagery

leahbarton1 — 2025-08-21 17:38:36 UTC

"The air smell of diesel, bread and kebab mixed with the stink from the stream where people still dumped their rubbish and were never going to stop despite all the campaigning by my father and his father." Page 241. This sentence helps put the reader in the shoes of how Malala is feeling and seeing.

Onomatopoeia

leahbarton1 — 2025-08-22 12:28:26 UTC

"The sounds in my head were not the crack, crack, crack of three bullets, but the chop, chop, chop, drip, drip, drip of the man severing the heads of chickens, and them dropping into the dirty street, one by one." Page 242. This gives the reader a sensory experience that copies the sounds that Malala was hearing during her story.

1 - Rise of the Taliban

brooklynduplessis — 2025-08-22 15:32:24 UTC

When Malala was ten years old the Taliban came to Swat. The Taliban appeared in groups. The leader of the Taliban, Maulana Fazlullah, set up an illegal radio and broadcast every night trying to encourage people and make them better Muslims. As time went on Fazlullah's rules were getting stricter and enforced more.

2 - Taliban ban girls' education

brooklynduplessis — 2025-08-22 15:32:30 UTC

Fazlullah kept broadcasting that girls should stay home and his men kept blowing up schools during the night. Malala and her father spoke out about what was happening and some girls from the school did interviews too. At the end of 2008, Fazlullah's deputy announced that all girl's schools would close. From January 15th, girls must not go to school.

3 - Malala speaks out about girls' education and the Taliban

brooklynduplessis — 2025-08-22 15:32:39 UTC

When Malala was eleven years old, she wrote for BBC Urdu about life under the Taliban. And when the Taliban banned school for girls, Malala and her father spoke out about what was happening and some girls from the school did interviews too.

4 - Malala gets shot by the Taliban

brooklynduplessis — 2025-08-22 15:32:44 UTC

Malala was riding home on the bus from school when a Talib stopped the bus and another came in through the back of the bus. He shot Malala and 2 other girls. She was shot in the head. She was immediately brought to the hospital and needed lots of medical attention due to the severity of her injuries.

1 - Swat Valley

brooklynduplessis — 2025-08-22 15:32:59 UTC

Swat Valley is her cultural homeland, where she grew up, went to school, fought for girl's education, and where she was shot.

2 - Birmingham, England

brooklynduplessis — 2025-08-22 15:33:10 UTC

Birmingham, England is where Malala went to get the medical treatment she needed after she was shot, her home because she couldn't go back to Swat, and a place where she could continue her education and advocate for girl's education.

Assassination Attempt

brooklynduplessis — 2025-08-25 17:17:58 UTC

The pivotal event was on October 9, 2012 when Malala was shot by the Taliban who was trying to kill her. This event was followed by her recovery and transfer to England for treatment.

5 - Malala and family move to Birmingham, England

brooklynduplessis — 2025-08-25 17:31:02 UTC

After Malala was shot, she needed immediate medical attention. Her condition kept deteriorating while she was at the hospital in Swat, so she was moved to a better hospital, Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) in England. While she was getting treatment, her family moved there but little did they know they would never be able to return back to Pakistan because it was risky due to Fazlullah becoming head of the whole Pakistan Taliban. So, they eventually moved into a house in Birmingham, England.

Pockmarked

leahbarton1 — 2025-08-27 22:59:46 UTC

Pockmarked (adjective) means to be covered with small pits or marks.

Sentence usage: "The army and Taliban had fought street to street and almost every wall was pockmarked with bullet holes." (Page 190)

Pisho

leahbarton1 — 2025-08-27 23:07:46 UTC

Pisho (noun) means cat in Perisan.

Sentence Usage: "'Pisho,'" she would call." (Page 5)

Charlatan

leahbarton1 — 2025-08-27 23:13:19 UTC

Charlatan (noun) means a person who is lying about having a certain knowledge or a fraud.

Sentence Usage: "My father said the doctor was a charlatan and this is why we needed to keep struggling against ignorance." (Page 216)

Swat Valley Culture

leahbarton1 — 2025-08-28 17:25:12 UTC

Malala being a girl in Swat Valley influenced the book completely. Girls were frowned upon compared to boys and were less fortunate where she comes from. Most girls didn't have education which led to the plot of the book, Malala fighting for women's education.

Taliban took over Pakistan

leahbarton1 — 2025-08-28 17:26:56 UTC

The Taliban took over Pakistan and intruded Swat Valley. A big turning point in the book was when one of the Talibs shot Malala. This influenced her life by making her have a rough recovery and having to permanently move countries.