Chapter 16

Pakistan’s prime minister announces the Taliban have been removed and Malala and her family return home. The valley is littered with debris and bullet casings and Malala learns that the school has been used in the battles. The army has arrested thousands of people, including young boys who had been radicalised by the Taliban, and are de-radicalising them in camps, but they have failed to capture the Taliban. Gradually, more people return and the school begins running again. Malala and a group of student girls take a trip to Islamabad where they meet General Abbas, the chief spokesman for the army. Malala and Madam Maryam later petition General Abbas for funds to pay the school’s teachers, and he responds with sending 1,100,000 rupees. Further hardship befalls the town in the form of a monsoon that causes flooding and devastation, and the valley receives little help.

Chapter 16 Quotes

I felt sorry that our precious school had become a battlefield. Chapter 16

Our country had so many crises and no real leaders to tackle them. Chapter 16

Chapter 17

A 13 year old Malala notices she has stopped growing taller and fears this will interfere with her authoritativeness. The Taliban are still at large, and Malala is alarmed at the army’s focus on interrogating innocent people instead of capturing the Taliban, and at the growing number of political assassinations. Ziauddin receives another death threat but does not stop speaking out. The Americans announce they have captured and executed Osama bin Laden, which causes bitter tensions because the operation had been carried out on Pakistani soil without the government’s knowledge. Others, like Malala’s family, are more concerned with why the army’s intelligence had failed to realise that bin Laden had been living in Pakistan for nine years and that his last compound was less than a mile from one of their military academies.

On a positive note, Malala is nominated for an international peace prize of KidsRights, and although she does not win, she receives a cheque for $4,500 towards her campaign for girls’ rights. She continues campaigning and is invited to speak at a national education gala, being awarded Pakistan’s first even National Peace Prize from the prime minister with whom she exchanges a long list of demands regarding girls’ education. Malala’s growing public profile has her mother concerned for Malala’s safety. Malala begins to amass a large sum of prize money and contemplates her dream of starting an education foundation.

Chapter 17 Quotes

He had been living in a large walled compound less than a mile from our military academy. We couldn’t believe the army had been oblivious to bin Laden’s whereabouts. Chapter 17

‘I know the importance of education because my pens and books were taken from me by force.’ (excerpt from speech at Pakistani education gala) Chapter 17

She herself would never appear in public. She refused even to be photographed. She is a very traditional woman… Were she to break that tradition, men and women would talk against her, particularly those in our own family. (Tor Pekai) Chapter 17

… when I won prizes, she said, ‘I don’t want awards, I want my daughter. I wouldn’t exchange a single eyelash of my daughter for the whole world.’ (Tor Pekai) Chapter 17

I knew that any of the girls in my class could have achieved what I had achieved if they had had their parents’ support. Chapter 17

‘My only ambition,’ he said, ‘is to educate my children and my nation as much as I am able. But when half of your leaders tell lies and the other half is negotiating with the Taliban, there is nowhere to go. One has to speak out.’ (Ziauddin) Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Malala’s narrative turns to the story of her aunt, and to a contemplation that despite certain gains in the rights and roles of women in her society, women were fundamentally still dependent on men, and how this contradicts the Quran.

Malala’s family travel to Karachi where a school is being renamed in Malala’s honour. They visit the tomb of Jinnah, where Malala mourns the Pakistan he had envisaged and which has not been realised.

Malala’s family learn that Malala has become a target for the Taliban and upon their return home, she is offered a bodyguard by the police.

Chapter 18 Quotes

My headmistress Maryam was a strong, educated woman but in our society she could not live on her own and come to work. She had to be living with a husband, brother or parents. Chapter 18

Nowhere is it written in the Quran that a woman should be dependent on a man. Chapter 18

It was hard to visit that place and read those speeches without thinking that Jinnah would be very disappointed in Pakistan. … He wished us to be independent, to be tolerant, to be kind to each other. He wanted everyone to be free whatever their beliefs. Chapter 18

Chapter 19

A propagandic letter arrives for Malala’s family, and the wider community, denouncing a school trip in which school girls picnicked by a river. Ziauddin speaks out about it and his friend, Hidayatullah, warns him that the Taliban is a mentality, rather than an organised force, and that the mentality exists all over Pakistan. When Ziauddin’s associate is shot in the face, friends direct Ziauddin to keep a low profile but he refuses, and instead only changes his routine so as to thwart anyone who may be watching him.

Chapter 19 Quotes

My father spoke like a lion, but I could see in his heart he was worried and scared. Chapter 19

His only precaution was to change his routine. (Malala, on her father) Chapter 19

After the threats against me my mother didn’t like me walking anywhere and insisted I get a rickshaw to school and take the bus home even though it was only a five-minute walk. Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Malala begins to thinks she sees the Taliban everywhere and, compared to her father, takes precautions, checking the security of the home and praying more often. It is exam time and Malala studies into the night.

The pivotal moment in the novel arrives when, one afternoon after an exam, Malala travels home with some girlfriends in the bus. Two men stop the bus and enter, then singling out Malala, shoot her. Two of Malala’s friends are also shot. Malala is left unconscious.