Malala's Magic Pencil

by Malala Yousafzai

Other authorsKerascoët (Illustrator)

Hardcover, 2017

Status

Available

Call number

371.822095491

Collection

Pioneers

Publication

Little, Brown Books for Young Readers (2017), 48 pages

Description

Malala's first picture book will inspire young readers everywhere to find the magic all around them. As a child in Pakistan, Malala made a wish for a magic pencil. She would use it to make everyone happy, to erase the smell of garbage from her city, to sleep an extra hour in the morning. But as she grew older, Malala saw that there were more important things to wish for. She saw a world that needed fixing. And even if she never found a magic pencil, Malala realized that she could still work hard every day to make her wishes come true.

User reviews

LibraryThing member melodyreads

Well told for children.

5 more

LibraryThing member Stewart24

I was very interested in reading the (abbreviated) story of Malala's young life and her path to activism. The story is perfect for young children and convey's Malala's message of the power each person to affect change - "I had at last found the magic I was looking for - in my words and in my

work...and every day I work to make my wish come true." Her story is so captivating. Even though the exterior circumstances of a student's world may look different from Malala's, every child can relate to making a wish and wanting something so badly to be true. This book encourages children to seek ways to make the world a better place for every person in it.

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LibraryThing member Sondosottallah

Malala's brave story is gently told through this book. The book uses the element of magic but still hits important human rights issues such as education for all and poverty. I think students would appreciate going to school after reading this book, knowing some people do not have that opportunity.

LibraryThing member sweetiegherkin

In this autobiography, Malala Yousafzai begins with a TV show she watched as a young child in which the protagonist has a magic pencil that brings things into existence. She wishes for her own magic pencil to bring her mother nice dresses, her brothers a soccer ball, etc. Over time as she sees

poverty and other struggles around her town, she wishes for peace and equality. She realizes that the best way to do this is make the magic come true herself, and she begins a writing campaign to make the world aware of the plight of young girls who are unable to attend school due to poverty and/or gender discrimination.

This book was so heartfelt that it did in fact make me cry. Being as this book is for young readers, Malala does not go into details in the main text but simply mentions how "dangerous men tried to silence" her, a statement on a starkly black page across from an illustration of Malala standing up in a hospital gown looking out the window. Her story ends optimistically and is certainly inspirational as others listen to her call. Her author's note contains some further motivation for readers: "Once, I wished for Sanju's magic pencil. Now I know that when you find your voice, every pencil can be magic. I hope that my story inspires you to find the magic in your own life and to always speak up for what you believe in. Magic is everywhere in the world -- in knowledge, beauty, love, peace. The magic is in you, in your words, in your voice."

The illustrations are beautiful and are even more striking for having an overlay of rose-gold images for any of the "magic" things that Malala dreams up.

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LibraryThing member Linyarai

This was a fantastic version of I Am Malala, it highlights all of the important parts without being too dark and it emphasizes the importance of having a voice.

LibraryThing member AbigailAdams26

Educational rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize-winner Malala Yousafzai describes her childhood in Pakistan's Swat Valley in this lovely, deeply poignant and inspirational picture-book. Growing up, Malala wished that she had the magical pencil possessed by the hero of one of her favorite

television shows, imagining all the ways she could improve both her own life and the world around her. When the Taliban took over her region, outlawing education for girls, she realized that although she didn't have a magical pencil, she did have a voice - a voice she could use to promote the right of girls to go to school. Attacked for her work, Malala survived, and went on to become one of the world's most recognizable figures in this field of activism...

Malala Yousafzai has written both an adult memoir, and a young reader's version of that adult memoir, but Malala's Magic Pencil is aimed at younger children, at the preschool and early primary school level. Given that this is so, it's important to note that some of the most disturbing elements of her story - the fact that the Taliban attempted to assassinate her, for instance - are treated very obliquely here. The episode is covered in a two-page spread, the right-hand page a solid black, with the words "My voice became so powerful that dangerous men tried to silence me. But they failed" on it, and the left-hand page showing Malala at a window, wearing a hospital bracelet. This seems like a good way to handle the issue given the age of the audience, concentrating on the motives behind the attack and its failure, rather than on its violence. The moving narrative here is well-matched by the gorgeous artwork of Kerascoët, a pseudonym used by the husband and wife team of Sébastien Cosset and Marie Pommepuy. The illustrations are very expressive, in the human scenes, but there is an element of visual magic too, when Malala is using her pen, and the endpapers are beautifully decorative. All in all, a lovely picture-book introduction to this important figure, one I would recommend to young children interested in their peers around the world, or to anyone searching for children's books that emphasize what a vital blessing access to educations is.

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