- Welcome back.
We've got a full couch y'all,
Tony Gonzalez, Josh Brolin,
and best selling author Sabaa Tahir.
(audience applauding)
We've been talking about my stranger Read's initiative
which promotes reading,
something my next guest is deeply passionate
about she's an education activist, an advocate, an author
and in 2014, she became the youngest recipient
of the Nobel peace prize
putting my sports Emmy to shame, dial dialed in from London,
Please welcome Malala Yousafzai.
(audience applauding)
- Hello?
- Okay So Malala, like, what was the first book you
read that made you a lifelong reader?
- My favorite book has been the Alchemist.
It was one of the first books I read when I was a little kid
in Pakistan.
And a lot of students were limited to school textbooks
because they did not have enough libraries or they were not
encouraged to read books outside their school textbooks.
So I was very lucky that I was gifted this book.
And since then I have become an avid reader
and I really am considering myself fortunate to have access
to libraries and books now and to be able to read
- That's amazing, like reading something that cool
like so young.
So you're, you're tireless advocate for girls education.
So what are some of the biggest challenges that you
you think we face right now?
- There are 130 million girls
out of school and the recent events, including the pandemic
and climate related changes is making it worse.
More girls are at risk of losing their education.
And I think something that really needs our attention
right now is what's happening in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan is the only country
in the world where adolescent girls are forbidden
from having access to educate it is unimaginable.
Like why can't a girl go to school?
Why can't she have the right to be able to read and write?
So it must wake us up and challenge us to speak out.
Women in Afghanistan are on the streets.
They're protesting for their right to have access
to education, to have access to the right to work.
So, you know, I know that I receive so much support
around the world because I was one of those girls.
And I shared my story and people heard my story
but I want to remind everyone
that the story of Malala is not unique.
It is a story of millions of girls
who need our attention, who need our support.
(audience applauding)
- Oh, that's, it's so sad that there's so many out there.
You, y'all have a connection
so you've never met Malala, but you have met her dad?
- I'm so starstruck right now
and I don't ever get starstruck.
And I so appreciate who you are.
I did have a back and forth
with your father who wrote an introduction
for Steve McCrory's photographs.
He just did a book and he's a friend of mine.
So I ended up actually having an Instagram back and forth
with your dad. Yeah, and I loved it.
There was any connection with you
cause I have three girls in what you do means the world.
(audience applauding)
- It's such an honor.
It's such
- Oh man.
That's so cool.
It was such a random thing that we found out.
We were like, how? What?
- I know.
Yeah, the world is smaller than we think
- Me and her dad are hanging out.
We're bros.
- Yeah. Yeah.
You are Instagram bros.
So, Malala, you've also found a new way to advocate
for reading and education.
So can you tell us about it?
- Yes, I'm part of Literati
and I am their chief education advisor
and we know that not all children have access
to books and resources of education
and this pandemic has made it worse for many children.
So I'm working with Literati as this advisor
and I am here to ensure that children
especially in underserved communities can have access
to books that inspire them.
So Literati has made this commitment to
donate 100,000 books to those kids.
And I hope that, you know
more kids can get inspired to believe in themselves
and step up for changing their communities
and following the dreams that they believe in.
(audience applauding)
- Absolutely, that's so cool.
Do y'all remember a book that just completely changed you?
kind of opened your eyes, mine was Matilda.
I just been like the fourth grade.
I thought it was magical and it made me love reading.
So was there anything like that for y'all?
- I had one, I had one.
It was called Seven Daughters and Seven Sons.
It was by Barbara Cohen and Bahija Lovejoy.
I read it in fourth grade and I checked it out so much
that at the end of the year I was like, can I buy this?
And my librarian was like, you could lose it.
(audience laughing)
- Oh, I like her.
- You're so sweet.
And it was the first time I saw
- It's Damaged.
- I know it's like, we don't know where it went.
It was, it was the first time I had seen Arabic words
in a book.
The first time I saw a brown girl as like the hero
and it made me know that I was here, that we were here
we were present.
We, we were,
- we have stories,
- we have stories and that they are worth sharing.
And so it was such a special book for me
and I, I still, you know, I still have, that's
- It totally made an impact on the trajectory of your life
- Trajectory of my life.
Yeah, absolutely.
And I still keep it in a place of honor on my shelf.
And like, it's just such
- In a place of honor.
I'm stealing that.
- Yeah,
- People are gonna come over
and I'm be like, it's in a place of honor in my shelf.
- Exactly, yes, high up on the shelf.
- I'm stealing it.
Am gonna say I made it up. I'm just kidding.
- Totally fine.
I'll give you credit.
Did y'all have a book like that?
- Yeah, actually I'm a little bit later to the game reading
which I think is hopefully people out there go look
it's never too late.
But my going into my second, third year in the NFL
my second year in the NFL, I dropped
I led the NFL and drop passes.
And so I got benched twice.
And my brother sent me this book
by Vince Lombardi called when pride mattered.
And it was the first book that ever read
from beginning to the end that wasn't required reading.
And the whole, I don't know if most people don't know
who Vince Lombardi is or if you do,
he is one of the greatest coaches of all time in the NFL.
It's what the super bowl trophies named after.
- No, I knew cause I have sports Emmy.
- You got the sports Emmy.
So, so you know, you know that
- I have knowledge that I can drop
like that all the time.
Yeah.
- But, but that book, that book changed my life where
I read that book and I got so excited.
Like the greatest moment in a man's life is when
he lies totally exhausted on the battlefield glorious.
And off of that, I went out and I started reading
of all these other books by coaches.
- I love that
- Biographies and then since then,
I mean, I'm an avid reader.
I don't ever
- It's like once you find something that really
peaks your interest, then it just takes off.
- Yeah, and you see what, what reading can do, how
it can change your life and the people's lives around you.
It's such a domino effect.
It's not just you.
That's learning, it's you learning
and then spreading that information to everybody else.
It's a cool thing.
(audience applauding)
- Absolutely, absolutely.
And expanding your kids' vocabulary like
with children that's why we read all the time.
Did you have one?
- Just reading is a huge thing in my household
and it always has been, but I , you know, growing up
on a ranch, I think I just said it to you growing up
on a ranch you're out in the middle of nowhere.
You're feeding 65 horses every day.
And then I read Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, which is
about censorship and all that ironically.
And just exploded at my brain.
I mean, I was just, you see, through the hue
of what you're reading instead of having to deal
with the shower reality of what you're dealing with
which is, oh, I'm doing this thing every day
and it's monotonous and I'm out in the middle of nowhere
and then suddenly there's color everywhere.
And just reading is everything.
- That's wonderful. It's color everywhere.
I'm stealing that too.
I'm a club though.
So as you know, our stranger reads initiative is all
about sharing books with strangers.
So Malala, I was curious
if you wanted to share a book with me
and I would share one of my favorites with you today.
- Of course, I would love to share a book with you.
Last year my Literati book club
had this memoir called Aftershocks
by debut author, Nadia Owusu.
And she is abandoned by her mother
at age two and orphaned by her you know,
when her father dies at age 13 and this is
about how this young woman has to create her own home
and her own place in the world
and the strength and courage it takes to do that.
And I think it would really resonate
with you and all your viewers, Kelly.
So I hope you would enjoy that.
(audience applauding)
- Oh, I love it.
And I have not read it.
So I'm very excited about it.
I have.
Okay, I love this book.
I'm about to show you, it literally sent me on such a path.
It's called the language of flowers
by Vanessa Diffenbauch, and it's so, so good.
The story is kind of similar
in the sense that the, the female character, the lead
in it has to, like, she goes through like 30 foster homes.
It's just like
kind of just keeps hitting hurdles, you know
hurdle after hurdle.
And, and it just kind of tells her this she's very
much introverted and she starts to speak via flowers.
Like she makes these incredible and they all
every flower has a meaning
and it kind of goes back to Victorian times,
Which I didn't know.
And that's how they communicated
especially lovers, with flower.
I know exciting now,
it got Bridgerton y'all,(audience laughing) but no, it's
it's the language of flowers and it's
and it's just an amazing thing
how she ends up communicating it.
She finds it, it's her like kind of vessel of communicating.
And then it ends up kind of opening her
up to relationships and like different, you know
things that she wouldn't have done.
But it's so interesting.
And I had no idea that there was
like a language with flowers and now I'm obsessed
and I send the case to everyone
(audience laughing)
and they all have meaning.
It's like, it's very, it's very, very cool.
And it was just a different kind of novel
that I'd never read. So anyway, I hope you like it.
(audience applauding)
- I'd love to read it.
And for me, the high of this show is meeting all of you.
And also I love your books, Kelly.
I love them.
- Oh, thank you. Thank you so much.
(audience applauding)
- Thank everybody.