She's one of the greatest teenager in the world, and now she's poised to begin a literary career. Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai is writing a picture book about fixing the world, and everyone is excited. Malala's Magic Pencil will be illustrated by husband and wife artists Kerascoët, and is currently slated for release in 2017.
Malala Yousafzai became a global inspiration in 2012, when she was shot in the head by a Taliban assassin who forcefully boarded her schoolbus. The attempt on her life was the culmination of Yousafzai's experiences with the Taliban in her home country of Pakistan.
She first appeared on the radar in 2008, when she gave a speech on the importance of girls' education to an audience in Peshawar. The next year, Yousafzai began blogging for the BBC about her experiences in the Taliban-controlled region.
The Taliban did not issue a threat on her life until 2011, when Yousafzai was nominated for the International Children's Peace Prize and won Pakistan's National Youth Peace Prize. At the time, she was 14 years old. Yousafzai continued to attend school until that fateful day in October 2012, when she miraculously survived an assassin's bullet.
Yousafzai and her family settled in the U.K., where she had received treatment for her injuries. Today, she's been dubbed "the greatest college applicant ever," a testament to her commanding presence and earned celebrity.
Technically, Malala's Magic Pencil won't be Yousafzai's first book. In 2012, the Taliban-fighting scholar published her memoir, I Am Malala , which was co-written with British journalist Christina Lamb. A Young Readers Edition of the book followed in 2014. Yousafzai has also been the subject of several children's books, including For the Right to Learn by Rebecca Ann Langston-George, Malala Yousafzai: Warrior with Words by Karen Leggett Abouraya, and Malala: A Hero for All by Shana Corey.
Malala's Magic Pencil was "[i]nspired by her own childhood wish ... to help make the world a better place." From the press release:
At first Malala wanted to use her magic pencil to fix problems like the smell of the trash dump near her home and to make everyone in her family happy. But as she grew older, she saw a world that needed fixing, with many important things to wish for — and she realized that even if she never found a magic pencil, she could still work every day to make her wishes come true.
Look for Malala Yousafzai's picture book, Malala's Magic Pencil, at your favorite bookstore in Fall 2017.
