School books

Malala has a strong attachment to her school books and prays for their protection before having to leave them behind when her family become internally displaced persons, which represents her love for education and the further education she hopes to receive as she grows older. The books are also symbolic, along with pens, as weapons in the fight to make education accessible to all girls. This is noted in Malala’s speech before the UN, and in the form of propaganda as can be seen in the textbooks that were rewritten to portray Pakistan as an Islamic state and those distributed to children in refugee camps that taught arithmetic using fighting metaphors.

School Books Quotes

‘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

‘Let us pick up our books and our pens,’ I said. ‘They are our most powerful weapons. One child, one teacher, one book and one pen can change the world.’ (Malala to the UN) Epilogue

Burqa

The burqa is a full-body garment, also covering the head, which symbolises the oppression of women. As a girl, Malala has fun playing dress-ups with the burqa but as she matures, she comes to recognise the connection between the burqa and female repression in Pakistan, where females are unable to leave the home without a male relative, even if that male is only five years old. Malala rejects the notion of being forced to wear a burqa making her identity clearly visible to the young Taliban soldier who singles her out on the bus and shoots her. The wearing of a burqa does not symbolise devotion to Islam since both Malala and her mother, devout followers and students of the Quran, follow the Pashto custom of wearing a head covering only.

Burqa Quotes

Wearing a burqa is like walking inside big fabric shuttlecock with only a grille to see through and on hot days it’s like an oven. At least I didn’t have to wear one. Chapter 4

When you’re very young, you love the burqa because it’s great for dressing up. But when you are made to wear it, that’s a different matter. Chapter 13

School Bus

The school bus on which Malala and her two friends were shot was initially a symbol of safety, in that it transported Malala to and from home and school, a precaution Malala’s mother felt would be safer than Malala walking the five minutes home. However, by the end of the book, as illustrated by the photo Malala includes in her memoir where the bloodstains remain on the interior walls of the bus, it has become a place of tragedy; ironically, it was in the safe confines of the school bus that Malala was shot by a Taliban soldier.

School Bus Quote

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