Named for Malalai of Maiwand, Yousafzai lived with her father Ziauddin, her mother Toor Pekai and two younger brothers Khushal and Atal.

In 2006, Fazlullah began a popular "Radio Mullah" broadcast which initially gave advice on such matters as ritual ablutions and drug abstinence, but progressed into the condemnation of music and dancing, and instruction on women staying in the home.

During the First Battle of Swat, Malala begins to write a BBC Urdu blog under the pseudonym "Gul Mukai".

One bullet travelled from Yousafzai's left eye to her shoulder, and her friends Shazia and Kainat were also non-fatally injured.

Yousafzai was taken on 15 October to Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, aboard a United Arab Emirates jet, but her father refused to come as the rest of the family could not travel without passports.

Yousafzai woke up in Birmingham on 16 October, and spent the following days obsessed with the location of her father, and not being able to afford medical treatment, though the Pakistani government was covering costs.

When she awoke, she was confused about all the cards she had received, as there was supposed to be a news blackout in Pakistan so no one would know anything had happened to her or where she was being taken, but someone had seen her being flown out to the UK, and word got around quickly.

[9] Sayeeda Warsi, writing for The Daily Telegraph, giving the book four stars out of five, wrote "Malala has turned a tragedy into something positive".

[12] In The Observer, the reviewer Yvonne Roberts praised Lamb for ensuring "the teenager's voice is never lost", and summarises that "this extraordinary schoolgirl's words are a reminder of all that is best in human nature".

[15] Marie Arana in The Washington Post called the book "riveting" and wrote "It is difficult to imagine a chronicle of a war more moving, apart from perhaps the diary of Anne Frank.

"[16] The All Pakistan Private School's Federation announced that the book would be banned in its 152,000 member institutions, stating that it disrespected Islam and could have a "negative" influence.

[17] Pakistani investigative editor Ansar Abbasi described her work as "providing her critics something 'concrete' to prove her as an 'agent' of the West against Islam and Pakistan".

[25] A children's edition of the memoir was published in 2014 under the title I Am Malala: How One Girl Stood Up for Education and Changed the World.

[26] The audio book edition, narrated by Neela Vaswani, won the 2015 Grammy Award for Best Children's Album.