I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot By the Taliban
By Malala Yousafzai with Christina Lamb
Little Brown & Company, 2013
Memoir, Ages 14 and up
ISBN: 10: 0316322407
Additional formats: e-book, audio book
I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and was Shot by the Taliban is a poignant, educational, and surprisingly humorous memoir by Malala Yousafzai, the young woman who, at only fifteen, became one of the most heralded women’s rights activists in the world, when she was shot by a member of the Taliban on her way home from school with her friends.
The book provides extensive political, religious, and environmental history of the world Malala grew up in: the Swat region of Pakistan, Islam, and a family who raised Malala as an outspoken, educated girl. Malala describes the rich and, at times, turbulent culture and politics of Pakistan. She also expresses her love and admiration for Pakistan’s first female Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated in 2007. The memoir also offers an in-depth examination of Islam and the myriad sects that are a part of the world’s second-largest religion. The time spent delving into these topics is critically important to understanding what happened to Malala and also serves as a reminder of how the deeply personal parts of our lives are quite often the most political.
Most remarkably, however, are the revelations about Malala’s own family, who strongly support education, especially the education of women. Malala tenderly writes of her father and mother who encouraged her to learn, think, and question in a world that suppresses and the minds and bodies of women and often violently so. Beautiful and articulate, I Am Malala tells the story of a family with unimaginably fierce courage and their fight for the education of women in the face of oppression. – Gigi
Ninth Ward
By Jewell Parker Rhodes
Middle grade
Little Brown Books for Young Readers, 2010
ISBN:0316043079/978-0316043076
Awards/Recognitions: *2010 Coretta Scott King Honor Author Award *2010 Parents Choice Foundation Gold Award *Best Fiction of 2010, School Library Journal *2011 Jane Addams Honor Book Award for Older Children
Twelve-year old Lanesha was born with a caul over her face, signifying that this child carried a gift – the gift of seeing and speaking with spirits. For that reason, her blood-family won’t have her. They live uptown in the same city, New Orleans, yet might as well be a whole world away from the lower Ninth Ward where Lanesha lives with her guardian, Mama Ya-Ya, who took her in after her mother died giving birth to her. Lanesha’s classmates mock her, too, because of the gift of the caul. They’re afraid of what they don’t understand.
Spirits everywhere greet Lanesha. At school there’s a boy her age, a ghost in baggy pants, and all through the neighborhood, Lanesha sees ghosts, young and old, from just yesterday and ghosts, black and white, from long ago. Lanesha sees her mother’s spirit, too, lingering in repose on the birthing bed at Mama Ya-Ya’s house. She’s been right there since the day Lanesha was born, yet Mama’s spirit never speaks. Lanesha knows she never really rests either.
Only Mama Ya-Ya, TaShon, and her neighbors in the Ninth Ward accept her, so Lanesha finds her solace in words, collecting them one by one, getting to know each word and all that it could mean. Words like unfathomable and omen. Mama Ya-Ya teaches Lanesha how to embrace her gift of seeing spirits and how to befriend the meanings within those words.
Mama Ya-Ya has a gift of her own. She always knows when TaShon is coming over, even well before he reaches the door. In fact, Mama Ya-Ya always knows when something is coming, and this time she sees wrath – the wrath of a storm churning fast toward New Orleans. Yet, something different is about to happen, something that even Mama Ya-Ya cannot comprehend.
To survive this hurricane, Lanesha and TaShon will need all of Mama Ya-Ya’s wisdom and aid from Lanesha’s spirit-friends, too. Lanesha will need to crack open those words she’s learned and absorb their power. Powerful words like fortitude and suspension can help Lanesha through Hurricane Katrina.
Ninth Ward is author Jewell Parker Rhodes first novel for young readers. Strong and steady from the eye of Katrina, Parker Rhodes wields her own powers of voice, imagery, and metaphor. Even once the levee breaks, Parker Rhodes rises above with words and characters strong and beautiful enough to do more than survive. Ninth Ward is a fantastic story of friendship, family, and resourcefulness. It’s also an outstanding tribute to the sense of pride and depth of resolve that we’ve seen and continue to see in the people of New Orleans. GA
Me…Jane
By Patrick McDonnell
Picture book
Little Brown Books for Young Readers, 2011
ISBN: 0316045462/ ISBN: 798-0316045469
Awards/Recognitions: *2012 Caldecott Honor *Charlotte Zolotow Award Winner *New York Times Notable Children’s Book *2011 Bank Street College Children’s Book Committee Outstanding Book
Me…Jane is warm and inspiring picture book biography about Dr. Jane Goodall’s childhood. Taking his inspiration from Dr. Goodall’s biography, author-illustrator Patrick McDonnell invites us to experience the wondrous imagination of a girl named Jane who spends her days climbing trees, observing nature, and helping animals. From an early age, we learn, Jane knew she would devote her life to helping animals. With her stuffed chimpanzee, Jubilee, ever by her side, Jane records and illustrates the world around her and fills her waking and dreaming with thoughts of Africa.
With simple, vivid language, Patrick McDonnell lets us peek into the world of Jane, a passionate girl devoted to following her dream from the beginning. Me…Jane is a book for wandering around in on a Sunday morning. Take all morning! Each read invites you to absorb the savory watercolor illustrations that express the artistic side of Jane and notice the 19th Century engravings that reflect her devotion to science. Childhood photos of and artwork by Jane Goodall are also incorporated and help make this book a keepsake.
For every girl who keeps a diary under her pillow or a dream in her heart, there is Me…Jane. Every page invites readers to celebrate our planet and to listen the beating of their own hearts. GA
Huntress
By Malinda Lo
Young adult
Little Brown Books for Young Readers, 2011
ISBN: 9780316040075/9780316175203
Awards/Recognitions: * ALA Best Books for Young Adults
O, Huntress!
Some books defy categorization; some books reject our need to make the world linear and instead turn our imaginations inside out for a nice cleaning out of cobwebs, a good letting in of sunshine. Open the pages of such a book and, somehow, labels and shelves and containment seem not only inappropriate but downright sinful. Such a book is Huntress.
Fantasy? Yes. Adventure? Certainly so. Love story? Oh yes, a love story of the truest, purest sort. Young Adult? OK, sure, technically, I guess that’s where Huntress rests when not in use. Spirituality? Deliciously so. Eco-fiction? Yep. GLBT? Sure!
The jacket flap summarizes the plot nicely: “Nature is out of balance in the human kingdom. The sun hasn’t shone in years, and crops are failing. Worse yet, strange and hostile creatures have begun to appear. The people’s survival hangs in the balance. To solve the crisis, the oracle stones are cast, and Kaede and Taisin, two seventeen-year-old girls, are picked to go forward on a dangerous and unheard-of journey to Tanlili, the city of the Fair Queen.”
O, Huntress, I love you at forty-six and would SO have loved you at fifteen. My daughter loves you at eighteen; my aunt at sixty.
And just what makes Huntress so lovable?
Well for starters, Huntress is a twofer – Kaede and Taisin, two strong girls in one book. Two strong girls saving the human and fay worlds, falling in love, and staying true to themselves. Author Malinda Lo has created a world so immediate and rich that readers can’t help but feel transported forward or backward into the journey with Kaede and Taisin. As their love grows, Lo’s narrative makes you giggle, makes you blush, and makes you remember. Aesthetically, this is one book you will want to hold in your hands and read in its paper version. Huntress is so lovingly designed with an old-school endpaper map, embellishments to open each chapter, and ornaments that delineate each of the book’s three parts. GA
Learn more about Malinda Lo.
This is not your school's summer reading list 