i am malala: the girl who stood up for education and was shot by the taliban. malala yousafzai. christina lamb. (239)

i am a horrible person and never really keep up with anything outside the realm of my little world.  i am  horrible about knowing what is going on in the world, current events and politics are sadly not concerns of mine.  i get most of my news scrolling through facebook, but never take the time to read an actual article, must headlines, nor do i take the time to research anything.

and to be perfectly honest, i knew of malala only because madonna had her name written on her back at the concert i went to at the staples center.  madonna, of course, also spoke about what happened to malala. but again to be horrible and honest, i don't remember much, i mean i was in the golden triangle for a madonna, my mind was freaking out over that fact.

i had seen post about i am malala, but when malala was awarded the nobel peace prize and became the youngest recipient of the award, i decided to put in my request for it at the library.

before i go on, i must share one critique, since this work was written with christina lamb, i couldn't help but be skeptical about what i was reading.  i know it doesn't really matter because at the end of the day, it's the message that is important versus how authentically this was malala.  but i couldn't help but wonder how much of what i read was framed by lamb.

in addition to this, i know that malala's cause is important, but the book did become redundant with malala really driving to home her point about education.  it was like okay, i get it.  at some points.  the book also seemed to be very aware of its audience and played it safe for the most point, it painted malala as this very pious and studious girl.  i mean i complained about anne frank being too #teenageproblems but it would have been nice to see malala the girl versus malala the advocate.  i hope when she is an older she will write another book on her own and be completely honest.

other than that this is amazing book because malala's story is truly amazing.

i am confused by the middle east, i don't whose side to be on or who to trust.  i don't know who should be allowed to rule over what area and who has actual claims to what lands.  this work demonstrated just how chaotic it really is.  everyone is confused.  malala lived in the swat valley of the pakistan.  the book discussed the history of swat valley. it went through and explained the confusing past of the militant leaders that plagued the area.  some of things mentioned reminded me of salman rushdie's midnight's children.  i can not give you a clear time line or explanation of leaders.  however, the real trouble of the area started with a radio personality, maulana fazlullah, leader of the taliban.  he began to call minor adherence to islamic law ie. destroying CDs and DVDs but soon it snowballed into bigger things like the restriction of women rights and girls' rights to education. it is scary to think how easy it is for someone like fazlullah to come into power and how willing people are to follow his lead though it destroys lives.

i was appalled and frighten by all that had occurred in swat, even more so because i had no idea how bad it truly was.  when i read about horrible things in history, ie the holocaust, i was always think to myself, how did the world allow this to happen?  why didn't anyone stop it?  pre-internet, the excuse that no one knew what was going on was acceptable.  but what about now?  i mean malala had a blog on the bbc website that explained how her daily life was in swat and yet i had no idea about it. furthermore, how did pakinstan not intervene with all of this?  or the us?  i mean we were all for stopping al-qaeda yet didn't help out against the taliban.  i have to add that i admired how malala did critique the us government.  our relationship with the middle east is always messy and at times we truly are the enemy, and this was demonstrated here.  the taliban is truly frightening.  i can not imagine living with all of that violence and having to see dead bodies everywhere.  its sad to think how destructive humans can be, have we not learned from the past?  but then again, i am part of the problem not knowing what is going on in the world.

majority of this work was the history of the swat valley and malala's background.   i had always assumed she was just a random girl that was shot but it turns out that there was more to it.  kinda like learning that rosa parks and the bus incident was staged.  her father was an owner of a school and spoke out against the taliban and another political leaders.  as malala grew older, she began to speak out as well ie the bbc blog (though it was anonymous).  there was discussion about how her father putting her up to everything, which she addressed.  malala did it for herself and i believer her.  but obviously if she did not have her father as her father, i doubt any of this would have happen.

the last handful of chapters are devoted to the actual shooting.  again, i had no idea what was going so was very confused when she mentioned that she was shot in the eye in the foreword.  i even looked at pictures to see if she had a glass eye (i told you i'm horrible).  she was on a bus and man came up on the bus and asked who is malala?  no one answered but the other girls looked to her and she was shot at three times.  she was taken to the hospital and started to be treated.  two visiting doctors from england were in pakistan and asked to check on her.  one of the doctors remarked that the hospital was unfit to care for her and sadly none of her suggestions were taken into account.  they then decided to take malala abroad to have her treated.  and here is what shocked me, how political issues were the main priority in her recovery versus where would malala be treated the best.  there was an offer from john hopkins in the states, but due to the recent killing of osama bin laden (which the us did without notifying the pakistani government) the pakistani government did not want to send malala here.  i am not saying that america is the best place to be treated (though it probably is, see recent ebola outbreak) but politics should not have been a factor in helping malala recover.  i was appalled by what i had read.  malala ended up going to england, where she was taken excellent care of. sadly, she went on her own with a doctor as her legal guardian.  there was an issue with her parents passports, having to do with the pakistani government  being worried that her family would seek asylum in the uk or something.  again, really? that poor child woke up in a foreign country, after being shot in the head and her parents have been stopped by their own government from being with her.

as we know, malala did recover.  i was shocked to read about how they removed part of her skull and put in her stomach! her brain was swelling and part had to be removed to allow it do so.  her skull become infected so they couldn't use it so they gave her a platinum skull piece.  she also had an issue with one of her nerves and couldn't smile.  this was big thing for her parents apparently, but i felt like it was played up a bit.  i mean if my kid got shot in the head, i would be happy s/he were alive and alert and not the least bit concerned with a smile.  but to each their own.

malala also mentioned the hollywood celebs that tweeted about her etc.  and madge was actually trumped by angelina jolie in her book, i mean jolie did make a donation to her organization.

but this was an excellent read and i highly recommend it.  especially to every girl and woman!  as i said before, malala's story is truly amazing, and this book is a must read.  i mean the girl is the youngest nobel prize winner and the un has given her her own day.  and everyone, especially girls should have the right to learn!

  

the lottery and other stories. shirley jackson. (216)

after reading we always lived in the castle, i decided to check out shirley jackson's other works.  i am too chicken shit to read the house on haunting hill, so instead decided to check out her short story, "the lottery".  wikipedia claimed it as "one of the most famous short stories in American literature", so i decided to give it a read.  it did take me a while to build up the courage to read it.  though we always lived in the castle was more creepy and demented then outright scary, i was still weary of reading "the lottery". i wasn't sure what to expect.

if you have never read "the lottery", stop right here and go read it.  it won't take you long.  also stop here if you plan on reading it because a there are spoilers.

***spoilers****

turns out, i was worried for nothing.  "the lottery" though demented did not scare me like i had anticipated.  in fact, it was a little lackluster, though i blame the hunger games for my lack of shock, i knew someone was going to die.  "the lottery" is the story of a lottery; every year, in order to reap a good harvest of corn, the village, as all villages do, gather for the lottery.  there was talk among the villagers that some villages had stopped it, but their talk disapproved of the breaking of tradition.  the whole village gathered and all the heads of the family, picked a piece of paper from a black box (sounds like the katniss and her story, right?).  the family with the black dot must then picked again.  then the family member with the black dot is  . . . stoned to death.  shocking and demented, but not that surprising since in the hunger games someone is elected to die to benefit the collective.  i wonder if collins was inspired by "the lottery", i mean as i read, i felt like i was reading the hunger games.  but jackson, the better writer, had the guts to kill the person, sending home the message of how dangerous outdated traditions can be.  i feel like every analysis that i read about jackson's "the lottery" and her a handful of other short stories, mentioned her call against conformity, and that is clearly seen in this story.  a great story, and i think i would have found it absolutely brilliant, if my mind had not been tainted by the hunger games first.

i ended up reading the rest of the stories in this collection (it is the year of the short story).  i was expecting them to be dark and scary like ghost stories, but they really weren't.  i mean they were dark, jackson is american gothic (though i am not truly sure of what is meant by the term because i never finished flannery o'connor's collection of short stories).  they were enjoyable reads and many contained very important morals.

one of the darker ones i enjoyed was "the daemon lover", which i discovered takes its name from scottish ballad about a man james harris (the name harris also appears in alot of stories, i am not sure why, i almost felt like jackson's stories came from the same universe, think pixar universe, and so harris' mentioned were all the same person!) who lures a lover away from her family and husband.  in the short story, a woman, was waiting for her lover, jamie or james harris.  they are to be married that day but he never shows up.  she then went on a wild goose chase after him.  at first, you feel bad for her because she can not find him, but then you start to question if she is sane.  she ended up outside of an apartment where she hears voices.  it is then shared that she returns to the apartment every day trying to find him.  so yes in fact, she was crazy.

another i loved was "charles". i knew the ending before i read it, simply from having to deal with kids all the time.  the story is told from the perspective of a mother, whose son has just started kindergarten.  the son came home every day with outrageous stories of a little boy, charles.  charles was constantly in trouble.  in the end, the mother learned from the teacher that there is no charles!!  i really wish that this short story could be included in parent handbooks for every school year! so many times parents do not realize that their kids are the troublemakers.

"the seven types of ambiguity" broke my heart, since i am a book lover.  the setting of a story is a bookstore.  there was a very well-educated and well-read young man that wanted to purchase a beautiful copy of "the seven types of ambiguity."  on this visit, a man, who was less educated but rich came into the store to purchase books to start reading since he never had a chance to before.  the young man recommended books to him.  the young man left the store, and at the register, the rich man inquires about the book he was looking at.  i hoped he was purchasing it for the young man but he purchased it for himself!  i was so upset at the owner for allowing him to buy it, it was obvious the young man loved the book and the rich man was buying it for vanity purposes.  it broke my heart.  demonstrating how some seek knowledge for personal betterment and others for vanity sake's.  another story that shared this same lesson was "afternoon in linen", in which a grandmother attempted to brag about how well rounded and educated her granddaughter, was embarrassed when her granddaughter confessed to copying a poem out of a book.

the other two stories that i enjoyed touched upon racial prejudice.  the first, "after you, my dear alphonse",  was the story of a little boy johnny that brought home his friend boyd for lunch.  boyd was black and johnny's mother though trying to be kind, was extremely ignorant and racist.  she inquired about boyd's family but all of her questions are based on black stereotypes.  she asked if his father worked, he did.  she assumed he was a factory worker, but he was a foreman.  she questioned his mother not working, but then her son johnny pointed out that she didn't either!  her questions continued in this vein, she assumed he had many brothers and sister and that his family was poor.  she went so far as to try to send used clothes home with him.  boyd politely explained that he did not need them, johnny's mother then became upset for her refusing his charity.  thankfully, the boys saw her actions as being a bit "screwy".  there are two lesson in this story, one that we should believe stereotypes and secondly, our charity should be for the benefit of the individual, it should not be a means for the giver to the feel superior for helping others.

the other story "flower garden", was the story of a woman, mrs. winnings and the neighbor that moved into a house she loved.  mrs. winnings came from a well-to-do family that i would describe as uppity but a better term would be traditional.  at first, she was desperate to be the new neighbors' friend.  but after an incident in which winning's and the neighbor's son harassed a half-black child, their friendship diminishes.  the neighbor apologized for the her son's behavior and asked the boy to help her in his garden.  the boy's father did not allow him but he began to work in the garden.  since he was black, the neighbors began to shun the new neighbor when at first they were so kind to her.  the most disappointing was mrs. winnings, who completely abandoned the new neighbor due to tradition and the community's discrimination against blacks.  the story ended sadly with the new neighbor wanting to move.  though i guess to really understand how racism can destroy lives, lives must be destroyed.  again in this story, we see the destructive nature of conformity, especially in relation to upholding traditions of racism and discrimination.

these are the stories that i enjoyed the most.  not all of them are winners, for example, i was bored with "elizabeth"(though i know how it is to wake up one day and wonder how you ended up where you are in life, see: mid-life crisis), "the renegade", and "pillar of salt" (though i think this was to demonstrate how destructive new york can be.)

a good collection, i would pick it up for the stories that i mentioned and pass over the rest.