Shana Corey - Malala

Text copyright 2016 by Shana Corey

Illustrations copyright 2016 by Elizabeth Sayles

Photograph credits: Cover: European UnionEuropean Parliament, Pietro Naj-Oleari, 2013; : Nigel Waldron/Getty Images Entertainment/Getty Images

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Corey, Shana.

Malala : a hero for all / by Shana Corey; illustrations by Elizabeth Sayles.

pages cm. (Step into reading, step 4)

ISBN 978-0-553-53761-1 (trade pbk.) ISBN 978-0-553-53762-8 (lib. bdg.)

ISBN 978-0-553-53763-5 (ebook)

1. Yousafzai, Malala, 1997 Juvenile literature. 2. GirlsEducationPakistanJuvenile literature. 3. PakistanSocial conditionsJuvenile literature. I. Title.

LC2330.C67 2016 371.822095491dc23 2014047751

eBook ISBN9780553537635

This book has been officially leveled by using the F&P Text Level Gradient Leveling System.

Random House Childrens Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

v4.1

a

For Adelaide Albertoa girl with a book

S.C.

For Malala!

E.S.

Chapter 1

The Power of Words

A young girl stands at a podium. Today is her birthday. She is sixteen years old. But she is not celebrating with an ordinary party and cake. Instead, she is in front of an audience at the United Nations in New York City.

Hundreds of people wait to hear what she will say. She looks out at the crowd. Then she begins to speak.

She talks about peace. She talks about childrens right to an education. Its time to speak up, she says. Our words can change the world.

When she is finished, the audience rises and gives her a standing ovation. The young girl in front of them is a hero.

Chapter 2

A Baby Is Born

On July 12, 1997, a tiny baby came kicking and screaming into the world. If the baby had been a boy, guns would have been fired in celebration. Gifts would have been piled into the babys cradle. The babys name would have been written in the family tree.

But this baby was a girl. In the country of Pakistan, a girls birth is usually not considered a reason to celebrate. Its not even worth writing down.

This babys parents were different, though. They named the new baby Malala, after Malalai, a famous heroine who had inspired an army with her words.

Malala Yousafzais father was a teacher and a poet and the principal of a school. He wrote her name on the family tree next to the boys and men who had come before her. And he taught her the story of Malalai.

Chapter 3

Free as a Bird

Malala and her family are members of the Pashtun people. During her childhood, they lived in the city of Mingora, which is in the Swat Valley in Pakistan.

Malala loved her valley. There were beautiful mountains and sparkling waterfalls. In the summer, wildflowers turned the fields into a rainbow, and ripe pomegranates, peaches, and figs filled the trees.

In many ways, Malala was a regular Pashtun girl. She loved pizza and cupcakes, and hated eggplant.

She played cricket and tag and hide-and-seek. She had picnics in the summer and built snowmen in the winter.