Her hometown, located in Swat Valley, was a huge tourist attraction especially known for it’s festivals. That is until the area started to become controlled by a political movement group known as the taliban.
In early 2009, when she was 11 or 12, Malala wrote a blog under a pseudonym for the BBC Urdu about her life under Taliban occupation and their attempts to take control of the valley. She also, at this early age, began expressing her views on promoting education for girls in the Swat Valley. The following summer, journalist Adam B. Ellick made a